"Ma'am, the carriage is about to–"

"Cter isn't leaving without my balls in her mouth, soldier!"

With eyes widened like plates Cter leaned her head out the carriage window. The top of her head bonked against the window frame without her noticing it. "What the void, Idyll?" she hissed at her friend forcing herself through the gap between the two Royal Guards who'd helped Cter pack the tributes and gifts onto the carriage. "Don't yell things like that."

A dismissive titter pushed through Idyll's snicker before she jumped up on the carriage step, causing it to tilt a bit. "It got your attention, didn't it?" Idyll excused with her smile thinning her lips. "Here, a gift from the newly appointed Seul Chef."

Cter had to take the greasy bag Idyll presented with an awkward grip to get it into the carriage through the window without its inside turning into greasier mush. It was a heavy bag, and Cter had no idea where to put it without it staining the upholstery she was to live in for a month and then some. For the time being she just had it hover while she turned her attention back to Idyll wiping off a drop from the outside of the window with her apron.

All it really did was make the grease into a bigger circle that blurred her smile. A hazy split between her face's left blue side and her right black side, with her smiling, yellow-tinted row connecting the two together. "Finally got done with the paperwork earlier today!" Her cheer created a bigger, more opaque circle on the window as her excited breath pushed against the glass with her muzzle resting on top. "Barbeqa told me what to make for Sir Gerson to get his approval so I gotta thank her right after you leave. She's still my boss even with me being Seul Chef for the Royal Couple, but she's not as much boss over me as before, if that makes any sense to you?"

"I getcha," Cter answered without giving it any thought whether it did make sense or not. "Took a while to get the paperwork done since there was sauce spilled on it up until today?"

"Ha! Ha!" Idyll forced out, dripping with sarcasm. It was enough to cover the entire window with the condensation of her breath, so she had to wipe it clean to do it again so that Cter could see. "Ha! Ha!" she repeated with just as much sarcasm but with her blue side facing away from the window. "Such jests, goofs, and japes, my dear Monster Mage. Truly you'll be welcomed at the Hjearta court with open arms guffawing at your witty banter."

Idyll turned quiet when Cter flicked some greeting magic at her friend. She countered the tiny flicks of crystal with her fiery ice. "Yes, yes," the Seul Chef sighed. "I'm dragging this out, aren't I?" She looked to the side to assess how much left the two canine Royal Guards had left to pack. It wasn't a lot left. Just one bag that one of them could've carried easily. However since they were ordered to work together they discussed if it really was the two working together if it was light enough for one to carry alone. A third, hedgehog Royal Guard intersected from the roof with a snarky comment which had the tails of the two canines sink down fast enough to almost trip them.

"I'm gonna miss you, Cter," said the Seul Chef with a deep sigh. "I didn't get time to say that properly to you when you traveled to Xoff, so I wanted to say that now. In the grand scheme of things you won't really be gone for long, but..." Idyll clutched her fists with her neck bent down and her hair cascading over her eyes and muzzle. "My brother said the same thing when he left for Clinic Hill so..." Her hair swayed mesmerizing as she bounced her head from side to side. "And since you're like a sister to me..."

Cter knew that. She'd experienced it too, even if it was as Idyll and not herself. "I came back from Xoff, didn't I?" Cter sent with a shrug she made to be as loose as possible. "And I've already left Hjearta for Monster Country once, so it shouldn't be a problem for me leaving it again. My soul belongs here now, as does yours." Her arm scraped against the top of the window as she reached out with her hand for Idyll to grab. Her aura didn't have any problem reaching out and touching Idyll respective though. Both Idyll's hand and her aura were warm with love. "I'll bring back some new recipes for you to learn by soul, alright?"

Both Cter's soul and hand were squeezed back to acknowledge the promise. "Only the best recipes."

"Of course."

Once again the top of the window scraped long and white against Cter's bare skin as she brought her hand back into the carriage where the rest of her body was.

"Don't think any of the recipes will beat what's in that bag of yours though," the Seul Chef informed with a confident snap of her fingers. "Should get you through quite nicely. They respond well to being frozen magically, and more importantly they respond well to being heated magically. Absorbs the sauce better." Her extended, confident finger withered along with her wide smile as she looked over to the bag. "Although it looks like the carpet's absorbing the sauce instead."

Cter snapped her neck to the side.

"The carpet?"

Then down.

"The carpet!"

No! She'd only applied stasis magic to the bag and not its contents as well!

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" Cter cursed as she dove down with her right hand cupped like a bowl to catch the falling drops of sauce. Underneath the carpet had already begotten itself a soggy spot smelling of spices.

To Cter's immense frustration.

"Can't you just freeze it off like you did the stew?" was suggested through the window by Idyll's pushed-through muzzle. "Don't you have any informal clothes you can use to sacrifice?" She pointed over to one of the lone briefcases Cter had placed on the front of the carriage's purple room. "Anything in there?"

Cter knew exactly which briefcase Idyll was pointing to. "Nope." Like hell would she use what was in there! "That's my Monster Mage robe which was imported from Xoff." She shook her head with weight behind each turn. "Your cooking is good, Idyll, but it's not that good."

The window creaked as Idyll blew up her cheeks in childish dismay. "And here I thought you were my sister," she huffed, causing another creak of the glass. "Telling me my cooking's not good enough for your Monster Mage robe."

Oh for…

"Your sauce might be the best in the world but it still doesn't belong on a robe, Idyll." For as much as Cter wanted to turn and flick some discipline onto Idyll's nose, her hands were busy with making sure no more of the delicious-smelling sauce dripped onto the carpet.

Again, it didn't belong there!

"Since you're not using your ice magic to freeze bag or changing your stasis so that it doesn't continue to drip there's clearly something amiss with it, isn't there? Or is it too good for you to think, Cter? You're past trying to flatter me at this point." With a raspy sound Idyll pulled her head out of the window. "Oi!" she shouted to the Royal Guards still discussing. "You got a napkin of sorts that you can part with?"

While the one offered by the hedgehog monster from the roof was courteous, it was also way too small. One of the canine Royal Guards approached Idyll with one paw fumbling inside his armor. Just because he was walking away from his colleague didn't mean their discussion had stopped though. "Carrying weight together that's less than what we can carry on our own means that we're not working together since neither of us are actually helping the other."

The fear of punishment from Sir Gerson due to insubordination rang deep in his voice.

That was for the two Royal Guards to deal with though. Idyll had Cter to take care of. She offered the napkin to her crouched friend by throwing it through the window. "Here." It sailed down like a large leaf, landing next to the soggy spot without any sound. "Can you freeze it now?"

While Cter wanted to set the record straight that it was the bag she needed the napkin for since the meatballs would begin to drip again once reheated, she decided to just go with the flow. The week before it was ink dripping in Frioke's study, but at least Cter wasn't the one that had to live with it. With a helping freeze from Idyll, Cter stuck the napkin underneath the bag. The sauce in her hand she vaporized while holding it out of the window, and the carpet stain she just decided to cut out with conjuration magic and ignite out the window too.

"There," she sighed. "Finally." Her attention could finally be turned to where she was to store the bag. She disengaged her stasis magic and grabbed the top of the bag, only then realizing how heavy it was. "Idyll?" she mentioned while bouncing the bag to assess its exact weight. "How many meatballs are in here?"

"Twenty three," Idyll answered proudly.

Twent–

Twenty three?

"Why are there twenty three meatballs in the bag?"

"Because that's all that could fit in it."

That wasn't…

That wasn't what Cter meant!

But she wasn't gonna correct Idyll for not being wrong. She wasn't right either, but still not wrong.

Instead of correcting, Cter just placed the meatball-filled bag into the water basin where it'd sit until she could ask the Royal Guards outside to follow Idyll to the castle kitchen and fetch a large-enough bowl to house the bag.

With some drumming on the glass Idyll waited for Cter to wash off the last clumps of sauce off her fingers. "So what's the plan for your travels, by the way?"

"Yes."

A dark, overly dramatic shadow was cast by Idyll's unamused furrow that absorbed the overcast light to make the day-warmed air between the two friends cold like night. "Ha. Ha," Idyll stated. "Again with the goofs and gaffs."

Cter didn't mean to be coy about it, but she wasn't gonna apologize to Idyll anytime soon. Idyll was being coy with her, so she'll have to accept Cter being coy back.

Equivalent exchange.

Or something.

Uncooperative Connection.

Better.

"You gonna travel past The Flipping Heart via Main Road Three and then Pulsaoder? Or are you going through Main Road Two next to the mountain range? That's what I meant."

Idyll was fishing for whether or not Cter was traveling to her home village. She was, definitely. Idyll must've guessed the obvious. "I am stopping along the way to Fenkeep castle at a quaint little village to restock on supplies and to immerse myself in the local culture for a spell so that I can pay my proper respects to the Hjearta Royal Family once I arrive at my final destination."

That was enough for Idyll to have full confidence in her guess. Cter wasn't supposed to talk about her travel with those of lower rank than her, but nothing stopped her from giving context clues that her friend would be able to pick up without any problems.

There was a solemn nod from the Seul Chef. "I see." Her hand came up to her right cheek which she touched at gently. "C...Could you perhaps..." Her mouth grimaced, the tension yanking hard at her face. "When you meet Romrom, Cter." It ruffled her feathers. Her raven-colored feathers that she wasn't born with, but that she'd made her own regardless. "Could you please ask Romrom for some tips on how to properly take care of feathers? I've...tried to treat them the same as my hair, but they're too different for me to easily get oil and grease out of them. Maybe I need to use a different soap or some different brush, but I can't seem to find the right ones." Her right eye narrowed from the pain of plucking out one of her feathers. She held it up, spinning at its stem. "The other bird monsters aren't raven-like with their feathers. It's different. I'm–"

"Don't," Cter interrupted pleadingly. "Don't say that, Idyll."

"I know," Idyll agreed while her eyes became fixated on the black feather. "I know. It's just that...I reminded myself. That's all. When I know how to clean them properly it'll be better. Then it won't be...different."

Cter was both happy and sad over Idyll's confession. While Idyll still felt that she wasn't herself fully, she was still also determined to make sure that she'd one day feel completely like herself. It was good. Encouraging despite where it stemmed from. Cter would do everything she could to pry every single secret about her grandmother's feathers so that her friend would find peace with herself!

She'd fulfilled the promise she made to Romrom. Something that had plagued Cter's grandmother for her entire life. What she had raised her child to achieve, but was thwarted due to outside influence she could not control. When that failed she turned to her child's child.

And that child's child had finally done it.

Finally Romrom would be content in life.

Finally she'd touch Xoff silk with her bare feathers.

As Cter smiled with pride radiating in her aura like a blazing hearth during a winter night, it all felt so…

So…

Anti climatic.

"What's the matter?" perked Idyll from feeling the free fall in Cter's aura. She followed the Monster Mage's eyes to the briefcase stood important on the carriage's front seat. "Your robe?"

"Yeah," Cter muttered under her breath. With a blink her face was contorted into a questioning expression. "It's...the reason I became a mage."

"The…? Wait." Idyll took a hasty step back down from the carriage step. The rapid shift of weight had the entire carriage rocking, including the Monster Mage standing with brow lowered deeply over her eyes. "Wait a minute here!" Idyll summoned from the depths of her soul. "No." She refused. "No!" She refused to believe it! "Was that the promise to your grandmother that you always said with that important whisper?" Idyll waited with her neck jutted forwards for an answer, but the lack of one only confirmed her rather disappointed suspicion. She began counting on her right fingers by slamming her left hand onto them with increasingly vexed disbelief."Romrom groomed your magical abilities since you were but a small child. She sent you to Soul's School to study magic. Then she practically kicked you to the capital of a foreign country and told you not to come back until you were a Monster Mage."

As Idyll swept her arm before her it left an exuberant streak of fire-blended-ice magic in its wake that glimmered like jewels.

"She did all of that!"

The exuberant streak was cut into three pieces by Idyll throwing her palms down hard enough to lift her hair off of her shoulders and head.

"Just so that she could see you in an expensive, Xoff-made robe?"

The tension of Idyll's question was enough to keep her hair flowing above her like she was underwater. Her eyes were focused through the carriage window to the point where they almost shattered through it. On the receiving end of the gaze akin to focusing light through a magnifying glass stood Cter with shoulders slumped and sighs deep.

"Yes," she confessed.

"Singe! My! Soul!" the newly appointed Seul Chef shouted without fear of her becoming the newly discharged Seul Chef instead. "That's it?"

"Well..."

"No, Cter!" Idyll made loud and clear. "There's nothing well here. You became a Monster Mage, one of the most powerful mages in the entire world, just so that your grandmother can touch at Xoff silk?"

"Mom had an affinity for sewing so Romrom thought that would be enough to encourage and make a career from for her to be able to touch Xoff silk," Cter tried to defend while looking out the window fogging up with each of Idyll's fuming exhales, growing more opaque with each potent huff. "But my mom fell in love with my dad who's a Hjearta native and suddenly that all fell apart. Romrom doesn't hate him because of that. She loves her son-in-soul, but she was a bit...disappointed by the development."

"Guess I have that in common with her too!"

Cter couldn't help but smile at that.

"And don't you just brush this off, Cter. I've contemplated your promise ever since you first told me about it, for crying out loud!"

She sure was doing a lot of that. Enough so that the canine Royal Guards overcame their fear of insubordination and hurried over with the last bag to then sprint inside the castle with their tails tucked away from the screaming chef. The hedgehog one scurried over to the other side of the roof to his accommodations disguised as a large suitcase.

They knew that once a chef began screaming they needed to hightail it out of there. Scorned chefs, be it fire ones or other, hath fury equivalent of Sir Gerson.

"Something about the human soul. Something about the monster soul. Something about monster and human families," Idyll counted again with even harder slaps on her counted fingers. "Hell, something about magic in general. Maybe even if humans and monsters were once the same species and may return to being one in the future! Anything! Anything else, Cter!" Idyll was stuck between wanting to laugh hysterically and cry confusingly. Like a dough being worked with a bit too much enthusiasm her face molded between emotions, stretching and folding in on itself. "Why didn't she just buy some Xoff silk? She's a Village Elder, isn't she? There had to be something she could've done besides grooming two generations of humans to do her bidding!"

"It's not...bad that she did," Cter finally managed to fit in sideways as Idyll had to pause for some deep breaths that almost seemed to suck in the carriage towards her. "I became a Monster Mage because of it, right?" She sounded very unsure of it. Like a child defending after being caught stealing cookies. "The journey was the...eh...journey? I had to become proficient with magic enough to become a Monster Mage to then be able to procure genuine Xoff silk and–"

The carriage screamed a violent creak when Idyll gripped it as widely as she could and began shaking it. "Why! Didn't! She! Just! Buy! The! Silk?!" The meatball bag, the briefcase with the Xoff robe that apparently was the reason Cter became monster Mage, and Cter herself all were flung all over the carriage room. Before the meatball bag could explode on the carpet Cter managed to catch it with stasis magic, both the bag and its contents. She then caught the briefcase to make sure it wouldn't vomit out her robe. Finally she caught herself, and made her body hover just above the creaking jumps of the floor. Her magical lines stretched out across her sleeve to afford Cter to keep all three separate weights under control.

Once Idyll had blown off her steam enough to cook several frozen chickens she put down the carriage with breaths shooting in and out of her mouth quivering with yet more angry confusion. "Just...why?" she coughed. "Nevermind asking Romrom about how to properly care for raven feathers, dang it. Ask her instead why she didn't. Just! Buy! Th–" Before Idyll could engage herself again her body interrupted her with breathy coughs.

It gave Cter time to ease her stasis magic back down to where she, the meatballs, and the briefcase were. She flexed and stretched her hand and fingers since she only could use human-like stasis where it was more an extension of her hand rather than letting the magical weight spread out over her entire body from her soul. "It wouldn't be as fulfilling," Cter let slip out the window like a bashful schoolchild sliding a letter to another bench. "Buying the silk wouldn't be the same as earning it. It's dif–"

"Don't," Idyll interrupted pleadingly. "Don't say that, Cter."

"It's not my words."

"But you're still saying them."

"Well...yes." Cter tried to say something else, but her hands could only float up and down while her face contorted as she tried to form syllables her soul didn't want her to say. "It made sense when Romrom raised me. The glimmer in her eye when I asked her about it was all I needed to understand that it wouldn't be the same. It was determined. In that glimmer she looked like a Boss Monster. At least to me. The Xoff silk isn't the goal. It's just a means to make the journey."

As Idyll breathed greedily bent over at the waist with her hands taking support on her knees, causing her long and bright hair to obscure her face. Even through that veil though Cter felt a similar glimmer from her friend as she'd done from her grandma.

"There are humans adamant against the practice of human magic," was spoken through the veil low and methodical. "For fear of being absorbed by the magic. Becoming too much monster, in their eyes, and losing their humanity to something they weren't meant to have in the first place."

Idyll slowly arose from her hunched-over lean, her low and methodical words still echoed inside the carriage despite its soft interior. Once she'd straightened her back again her veil flowed over her shoulder like a strung harp.

"And golly, Cter."

To reveal a beaming smile full of sisterly love.

"You've been lost ever since you were born, it seems."

And sisterly teasing, of course.

"I don't know if I should even let you go back to Romrom now that you've fulfilled your promise," Idyll continued after a brief chuckle with both her fists pushed against her waist. "What will you come back with this time, I wonder?"

"You dread," Cter corrected.

"Your words, not mine."

"And I'm saying them."

A loud snicker had Idyll's body bounce. "Too bad that you are," she said before looking back at the castle. "It'd be nice to have someone who's not crazy in this castle."

With a wink through the carriage window Idyll headed back to the unposted gate as the Royal Guards that stood guard had also scurried back inside.

"Just remember the recipes and the feather care!" the Seul Chef sent over her shoulder along with some of her greeting magic to say goodbye.

Cter met it with her own magic and words. "Keep the castle on the ground while I'm gone!"

"Ha!"

Scared whimpering emerged from deep within the castle gate.

"Don't ask for miracles, Monster Mage!"