"So..."

"No."

"We're just gonna walk in silence?"

"Preferably, yes."

"You of all people running out of words to say, Kry?"

"No," the taller Monster Mage refuted with dismay that he was being roped into Sund's scheme. "Because unlike you, Cter actually listens instead of waiting for an opportunity to speak."

Sund just blew his lips against that notion. His hand waved dismissively against Kry's unamused expression. "If I didn't listen how would I've been able to eavesdrop?" He sought to nudge his elbow against Kry's arm, but Kry moved it away under his mantle.

"For how long did you?" replied Kry quickly, yet not really wanting an answer to it. "Weren't you supposed to be with Priestess Frioke today to go over the preliminary report of Cter's sleeve?"

With a gentle wave, Sund greeted one of his Royal Guard friends through one of the large windows that faced the part of the Royal Garden dedicated to study and botany. "A bit," he answered while still looking out the window towards the new imported trees that had managed to sprout without any magical help. "To both questions."

The reflection of Kry was well contrasted in the bright nature on the other side of the windows stretching from white floor to whiter ceiling. Sund took pleasure in seeing Kry enjoy the view through a brief glance, even if it was as brief as could be. Like Kry explained to Cter before, after years of trying, Sund had finally managed to plant the faintest seed of levity within Kry. Like the Xoff tree that sprouted in soil that was both too moist and too cold from its native fields, it still managed through. It would eventually grow to become a great tree bearing fruit that was known as ananas in Hjearta where Sund came from. It hadn't gotten a monster name to it, but that was the reason for it to be planted in the Royal Garden. For King Asgore and Queen Toriel to pick the first fruit together and give it a name.

Sund hoped that it would be Queen Toriel's turn to pick a name for it. The ones named by King Asgore had a tendency to be a bit...

"Naming a fruit after its color..."

Kry looked down to Sund muttering to himself. "Pardon?"

"Hm?" Sund replied with a quick spin to his head. "Oh, nothing." He made a show out of inhaling before continuing the subject. "Preliminary observations from Kurant, as well as the demonstrations made by Cter shows that hers is indeed some new and exciting magic. While it doesn't feel different in her aura or the way she applies it, you can still tell that it is something different." He opened both his palms to help explaining. "It's like using 'but'." First he raised his naked one. "Contra using 'however'." Then he pivoted his sleeved hand up. "Same same, but, or however, same."

Kry made an audible sniff at Sund standing with one hand raised and another lowered. "I'm sure the report written by the good Priestess will have it better explained." As Sund sent him daggers both with his eyes and with cyan magic that stuck onto Kry's mantle like bendy needles, Kry only smacked his lips. "You're right with her magic feeling..." He halted his words as his forehead folded deeply. "I don't wanna say that it felt off, maybe that her magic felt on?" Before Sund could return a smug reply, Kry cleared his throat to interrupt. "Yes, I guess it's hard to explain the difference."

"I'm quite conflicted over it," admitted Sund as he pocketed his hands into his robe like a peasant boy. He leaned his posture back, with some orange magic focused onto his lumbar to hold him up. "On the one hand." A brief pause passed as he argued within himself about whether or not to spend the effort resurfacing his burrowed hands. He nodded quite strangely to make a similar gesture as to how he did before when he weighed 'but' against 'however'. "On the one hand," which would've been his naked one, "that it is such a new and novel magic bodes well for us. On the other though," which would've been his sleeved hand, "it's more new and novel than when I discovered that humans could make their own magic."

Kry did not miss the golden opportunity laid before him. "Feeling old, Sund?"

"You say that," Sund replied with an even wider smile than what Kry was showing, "but–"

"However."

"But!" Sund repeated. "But I still win this."

"Pray tell, why?"

"Because you're smiling, Kry."

He touched his tensed cheeks which resulted in a chuckle. "Guess I am." His nod afterwards was approving with a hint of pride and accomplishment. "Seems that I am a bit more emotional at the moment."

"Talking about your past family so vile in your eyes that you wish to toss away your physical coil for a magical one is a good enough of a reason to be a bit more emotional in my book." Sund clutched his sleeved hand and inspected the glowing lines softly heaving with each of his breaths that pushed against his orange magic. "Seems that I have to figure out what I want from Cter's potentially new magic too. What change do I want for my human soul once we understand it fully?" He blew his lips while rolling his eyes up to think. "I don't know, really. Perhaps I've changed mine already with my own magic? Do I need to change it more?"

Sund kept his head and eyes tilted up for the length of one hallway before being forced to look back forwards as to not walk into a pair of Royal Guards talking between each other about whether or not skeleton monsters ran the risk of knotting their ceremonial robes up between their ribs. Sund already knew the answer to that, but he was not the one to interrupt a good discussion in the middle of it.

"If we assume that Cter's magic is transferable from monster to human then perhaps we should see if she can go even deeper than what the plan is for Bonny's magic. Depending on how she feels about it, would it be possible for Idyll Fech to have her old magic back?"

"You sound a smidgen forlorn at that," noticed Kry keenly, maybe perhaps a bit overly keenly. "On which side does that forlorn twang to your voice stem from?" His aura flared definitely too keenly to be able to discern the slightest change in Sund's aura. Since his magic was his own, with the memories of Frioke and Gerson only used for their catalytic properties, his aura was less subtle than other mages. "On Cter's side?"

No change.

No change in Sund's aura, to be specific.

Kry's, however, almost exploded with surprise. "Idyll Fech's side then?" He returned his aura to himself. "My, my."

The earrings shaped as upside-down monster souls thrashed against Sund's blossoming cheeks as he snapped his head away from Kry's amused expression. "Well unlike you and Kurant who curse their flesh and blood I still remember that Monster Mages should be monsters in human form," spoke Sund threateningly towards the sparsely hung paintings on the hallway's wall. The portrayed former Monster Kings and Monster Queens were not threatened by his huffs, nor were the painted landscapes in various times of days.

"A form that yearns for Idyll's?"

Sund's face took on an almost orange tint to it. Not orange like the fruit King Asgore named as such, but the color that preceded it. He bit his tongue though against denying to keep his pride, as the feelings he had were very genuine to him. "Priestess Frioke informed me that Idyll's progress with her new magic has been impressive. No sign of any rejection that might've come from her soul changing the way it did. It's...good. The black feathers on her cheek left over from when Cter's monster grandmother's magic became interwoven seem to be permanent though. Something to keep in mind going forwards. Something for Cter to keep in mind, that is. She'll have to figure out how to make it cleanly."

"Cleanly." Kry hooked onto that word like a fish onto bait. "In a sense, all of our new magic that we have discovered has been failures to a degree. Had we've managed to do it cleanly we would not have needed to keep it secret. I've no doubt there are human mages which are keeping new discoveries secret, but not to the extent we have." He shot a look out a window facing Jarasevo and the landscape of Monster Country beyond. "Discovering that one can make ice magic last for months on end and keeping it a secret to preserve the ice business in Hjearta is one thing, however that ice magic was discovered through the Cooperative Connection, so it doesn't hold a candle."

Sund nodded quietly to hopefully keep the subject changed and not revert back to his love towards Idyll.

"Or the fact that a Monster Mage is in love with a mere cook."

Dammit.

"Although I guess with King Asgore and Queen Toriel..." Kry immediately regretted with a self-pained furrow to his deep forehead. "You know what, nevermind. You go ahead with your pursuit."

The choice of words didn't really sit well with Sund. "Did you have to say pursuit?" he retorted with his brow lowered. "Couldn't use anything with a more pleasant ring to it?" Sund shook his head in a way that minimized the whipping of his hanging earrings. "Seems I have more work cut out for me when it comes to you acting like a normal person."

"Well I appreciate the effort," Kry replied with a shrug that lifted his heavy mantle. "Really, I do."

"Could show it a bit more."

A bushy eyebrow quirked high from Kry. So much so that there was a magical glimmer to it to make it reach higher. "Well I made a promise, didn't I? To the Monster Mage that swore to help me? Not to overstate the success lest he rests on his laurels."

"Overstate is a bit different from positively reinforce," Sund refutiated. If Kry was gonna play the overly formal game then he'd match that syllable by syllable. "The good sir, Kry, First of the Monster Mages, could, in his splendid wisdom and focused posture, so kindly at least recognize the help from said promised Monster Mage more than snark?"

"Snoring on his laurels," Kry said out loud to amuse himself. "Laurels soft and comfortable. Made upon the sturdy foundation of his own magic manifested in the form of glistening-white barricades sturdy enough to not succumb to any force, be it magical or physical, as they're projections of the vast potential stored within his human soul." Kry inhaled deeply, inflating his chest almost to the size of King Asgore's. "Unlike the parlor magic from lesser human mages made to look like conjurers of cheap tricks in the presence of the magic conjured by Sund, Third of the Monster Mages!"

It dawned for Sund that he might've picked a battle he could not win.

"The purest of projections of his human soul, unmatched in the land and the lands beyond! Magic made not by the memories of monsters, but by himself!"

Sund placed a hand on Kry's shoulder to indicate that it was enough. Fun while it lasted, but it was enough. Really, it was. He nodded forwards. "Queen Toriel," he informed Kry as he deepened his nod into a bow down on one knee.

A gentle titter flowed where Kry's insincere declarations once crashed like waves during a storm. The Monster Queen approached her two Monster Mages with a walk so soft the fabric on her robe never showed a single crinkle. "These walls have understood for a long while now, Kry," she joked to the Monster Mage hurrying down into a kneel as well. The deep tan on his face was pale like Kurant. "There is no need to remind them of Sund's discovery." She opened up one white, fuzzy palm from her clasped hands at the front of her robe and motioned for her Monster Mages to arise. "It has been some time since I talked to you two. Pray tell, what has Sir Gerson had you do under the guise of Asgore and my name?" The decorated tiara bounced on her forehead as she giggled. Once her ears had settled again on her shoulders she first turned to Kry. "I heard we had a few human mages visiting Jarasevo last month. New ones?"

"From what I could gather they were from the same class as Cter, Queen Toriel," Kry began after adjusting his glasses. His color returned to him quickly, giving him back his subtle luster and scaring away the ash-like pale that took him over briefly. He spoke with the same respectful tone to his voice as he did to Cter before, which intrigued Sund a bit. Was it because of respect for a mage that had the prospect of fulfilling his desire to escape his accursed flesh and blood strangling his emotions, or was it because he had similar feelings towards Cter as Sund had towards Idyll? "One of them were here on the behest of the court of Hjearta, albeit a rather casual behest, I reckoned."

"Casual behest?" Toriel repeated to have Kry explain further. Her eyes smiled. "Unofficial official business?"

"More or less, my Queen."

"A vacation paid by the court of Hjearta?" Toriel guessed again with her smile turning from amused to knowing. "Seems like the mages at the human courts operate the same as the mages at my court."

The feared stiffness that gripped the two Monster Mages made the nearby statues jealous.

"Well, if anything it shows that the human court has just as much faith in their mages as Asgore and I have." Toriel gave her Monster Mages an obvious wink to help them thaw out and begin breathing again. "They must be deserved vacations too, but just like my Monster Mages they are too proud to request any and instead weave those into the casual behests given by their king and queen." She looked to each of the Monster Mages in the eyes with her own gentle ones to make sure they understood fully the warmth and love she had for them. "In any case, it seems like the human mages that were in the same year as Cter was in Soul's School will be quite the influential ones. Perhaps they will lead us to a new chapter in this human magic book we're all writing together. I am quite intrigued for the future. There's only so much a queen can do to prepare the people. Ultimately it is the people that will lead us all further. All I can do is make sure they have the opportunity to."

"Well spoken, my Queen," said Kry and Sund in unison, which had Toriel chuckle.

"Oh do forgive," she said behind her hand covering her mouth. "The way you said it reminded me of a traveling pair of human merchants that visited Krygino's tavern long, long ago. It only took a few servings of beer for them to treat me like royalty for serving them. At the time I could only laugh at the silly idea of me being the Monster Queen." Her hand then moved underneath her ear to rest at her cheek which she leaned into. "Golly, if young me could see me now. She'd be so disappointed in me for breaking the promise I made about the castle..."

Sund and Kry traded confused glances about how, despite Toriel's regal clothing weaved with patterns so intricate they glittered differently with each blink, she looked like a bar maiden in how she moved and sighed through loose lips. Her voice, even! Shorter syllables befitted a bar maiden shouting quickly to get her orders out hurriedly to tend to the next guest.

It was...strange.

"How is Krygino, by the way?" Queen Toriel shot over to Kry, who flinched. "Good health? Good business?"

"Good health and good business, my Queen."

Hearing her title spoken not by her own voice snapped Toriel away from her wistful remembrance. Her ear slapped against her cheek as she yanked her hand away and clasped it again to rest on her robe. She cleared her throat. "I am pleased to hear that." She spoke softly again with longer syllables worthy of her words. "Quite pleased indeed. I should write to him soon."

"Sounds like a good idea, Queen Toriel."

"Yes," she agreed with a nod. "That it does."

A long silence birthed between Queen Toriel and her two Monster Mages. A silence that was quite uncomfortable until Queen Toriel took it upon herself to lead with an example. "Anyways, the human mages from Hjearta's court were just stopping by on their way to somewhere else? To Xoff, perhaps?"

"While they did not want to give their exact reasoning, perhaps for fear of me realizing that they were only here on vacation, I could tell from their carriage that Jarasevo was not their final stop. I've not heard anything from the borders about it crossing, be it to Xoff or to Hjearta, so I'm assuming that it's still somewhere here in Monster Country. The Royal Guard will be informed immediately should anything noteworthy happen, as usual."

"We do not have any suspicions towards them, do we?" Toriel asked to clarify. "I know the matter of Monster Country's security lies with you and Gerson, Kry, and perhaps this is just me hearing things wrong, but it does sound that there is something amiss at play?"

Kry shook his head. "We trust, but we also verify, my Queen. It is mostly to have Sir Gerson's mind free of any niggling worry so that he can focus on matters proper rather than matters in his mind."

Toriel regained her posture with an amused "Ah!" that evolved into yet another titter. "Then it is perfectly understandable." She turned her tittering smile towards Sund. "And you, Sund, how are things on your end? How was the snail pie Idyll Fech baked?"

"It was..." Sund began before having to step out of the way of Kry's gaze. "It was good, Queen Toriel."

"Have you talked further with her?" the queen pried like a curious mother, stopping just short of putting the back of her palm softly against the yellow-tinted cheek. "I'm sure she will be glad to find such a great person finding her to his liking." Toriel's hand instead fell onto her own cheek as she leaned in closer to whisper. "I should know," she said with an amused wink before standing up straight again. Even still with her long and deliberate movement her robe had no bend to it whatsoever. "I should know," she repeated in a whisper for herself.

"If I'm being honest, my Queen."

"I'd like that, Monster Mage."

"If I'm to be honest then, I haven't approached her at all," admitted Sund with his sleeved hand grasping the back of his neck and wringing it. His magical lines pulsated with each grinned wring down towards his elbow. "Reason being that I am not sure if Cter would be accepting of it. Not to say that Idyll does not have autonomy over her own feelings, just that, well, the two are closer friends than I think any lover of Idyll would ever be. With everything the two have gone through together it feels as if I should at least get Cter's blessing before approaching Idyll."

"You have a good soul for thinking that," assured Queen Toriel with a subtle nod to her head. "Even if I do not fully agree that you should need someone else's permission to follow your soul, that you are thinking the way you do indicates that you have Idyll's best intentions in mind. That is a good trait to have, Monster Mage. Savor it for me, please."

Sund bowed deeply. "I shall."

"And in return for that, I shall speak to Cter about it."

Kry and Sund again traded worried glances hearing how much their Monster Queen said it as a challenge worthy of being conquered. "You really don't have to, Queen Toriel" said Kry in Sund's stead.

"Really, it is fine," added Sund with a wave of his sleeved hand. As he waved, a half-circle of barricade magic formed due to his fluster. He swept it aside, letting it bounce with a porcelain-like sound as it fell onto the hard marble floor. "I'll talk to her in my own time."

"You do so," intoned Toriel. "However, I was actually planning on talking with Cter today in regards to her next travel to Hjearta. You two wouldn't happen to know where she is?"

"She is with King Asgore in the Royal Garden for her evaluation."

A playfully sinister smirk rolled up from Toriel's lips to steal away the queenly gentleness. "You don't say?" she smirked. "Maybe I should make it the Royall Garden then..."

It had the two Monster Mages weary.

"You'll have to excuse me," Queen Toriel voiced with her gaze set down the long hallway. She walked between the Monster Mages that stepped to the side to allow her passage. "I too have some evaluation to attend to."

The Monster Mages looked to the other once more, panic filling their eyes and auras. "Which wings?" asked Kry with his knee already bent to hurry off.

"I'll take the north and east one," replied Sund before his mantle twisted to carry with his lunge down one fork of the splitting hallway further down.

Poor Cter.

She had no idea what was awaiting her!