Through a window which glass distorted the outside gradient of leaves differently as how it would through the ones adorning the walls of Jarasevo Castle, the day outside was just like any other for both the country of Hjearta along with its neighboring countries, both the human and monster one.
Even if this was the first time Frioke saw the red-shifted leaves through glass she still could tell that it would be different than how they would look back home. The way the metal-supports blocked differently than in Jarasevo, the way the thickness of the glass hasdsettled more towards the bottom than in Jarasevo, and the way that the soda and sand mix must have differed from Jarasevo due to it being human-made rather than monster-made producing different refraction and change in light from the outside, set a beautiful blaze from the distant sun lowering itself behind the long-shadow-adorned landscape.
From outside that was not seen.
The outside was the same as it was the day before. As it was just an hour ago.
The surrounding walls encompassing and giving support to the window held in more than just the observation from the emotionally confused Monster Priestess. More than her churning mind that had only begun to scratch with a tired claw which rested on her lip sucked in with a blend of both momentous joy that had her entire body quivering from her toes to the tips of her swaying ears, as well as a sensation of profound recognition that quelled the quivers as to not disturb her given ceremonial robes.
For the day which seemed to not want to end truly was a day worthy of celebration more than any other. Enough so that even the visiting monsters from Monster Country had been granted permissions to don the most sacred and artisan of clothing worthy that of the Hjearta Royals themselves!
"The human soul..." the Monster Priestess whispered to herself for the tenth time since she was left alone in the sunset-facing room bathing in more orange than any leaf or any monster could ever have dreamt of wearing. The deep sleeves hanging like curtains off her arm contrasted with her arm not only with its color, but with its soft fabric to boot. The fabric swayed with as much inertia and weight as her long ears did when she finally tilted up her chin away from resting on her bent finger, meeting her thin reflection in the window.
"It's real."
The green, red, and white abstract patterns on the human robe distorted their masterfully stitched symbols of colorful trees among the snaking and knotting trajectories of the patterns as Frioke's legs tired out from underneath her. She fell into a nearby padded chair with her ears bouncing from the cushioned impact and settling down on her shoulders. Her eyes darted around between the cracks in the stone floor while her own words caused her more disbelief.
"It is real," she had to repeat more formally for her to accept her own voice as true. "The human soul is real."
She felt it with her own hands, as the humans would have describe it. Truth of the matter was that she felt it more than just with her hands. She felt it up her arms, down her ears, through her nose, everywhere on her. Her person sensed it. Her soul sensed it. Every magical fiber that made up her magical being and emotion felt it. Among wistful winds inside a hazy fog there was a gentle glow of an aura inside the human prince's soul. A hint of magic which was expressed outwards.
It was an aura.
Without a doubt it was an aura! Something Frioke was so used to feeling from every monster that she ever passed by. The nature of monsters which wasn't second to her, but first and foremost. What she had known her entire life and what she had dedicated her life to studying for the betterment of monsterkind!
That nature was in the possession of a human, she had discovered.
In the possession of a human prince which only a few rooms away slept soundly within the blanket he had been given by Queen Toriel as a gift to see the stars the way she did. For him to remember as she did when the two sat together on a cold night in Jarasevo Castle wrapped with his parents huddled around him radiating pride and questions for the future. A future which the human prince would help lead. A future which would have Frioke teach another prince about magic. A human prince this time around. Another reason why she was given this new robe, she supposed. It was both a thanks for services rendered and a collateral for future employment.
In a diplomatic way.
Such thought devoid of emotion from a monster in the moment of overwhelming ones from humans loud enough to still be plenty audible despite the stone walls and closed door behind her…
Frioke ran a hand across her forehead while conjuring the same cluster of magic in her hand that she did for the human prince sleeping just a few doors away from the sunset-facing room. Prince Soulay "What now?" the monster priestess asked her gently bobbing cluster of irregular clumps of glowing magic painted orange by the setting sun from the different window next to her. Their reaction were inert as she sat alone in the richly decorated room without another magical presence for them to shape themselves with. A childish game for a monster, played more often to get an admission of love between monster children to then run around singing about, than the proof that had taken the first step in reshaping the entire basis of differences between humans and monsters.
It was good that the shapes of magic didn't change since it meant that the reaction they felt with Prince Soulay was true. It was a proper magical reaction which occurred. A real, replicable reaction that would only grow stronger as the human prince grew and Frioke began her teaching. The only question that remained about that was whether Prince Soulay would live at Jarasevo Castle to easier build his magical proficiency or if Frioke would stay at Fenkeep Castle to study and hopefully refine her teachings to be more human, so to speak.
The Monster Princess sighed away her magic like wind pushing away and dispersing puffs of smoke. The glow which briefly fought against the consuming fiery-orange faded as well, leaving shimmering and oscillating spots of light from the other different-glass standing on the stone window sill refilled with Royal Mead more times than formally acceptable. Frioke's fingers wrapped around the bottom of the glass one at a time like she was playing a slow accord on a piano. Had she been home in her study she would've used stasis magic to bring the glass closer to her, but while in a human castle she might as well reach for it instead. Just felt more appropriate to do so even if her entire reason for being there was because of magic.
She sighed again, tiredly, and exhausted by it all.
It was a good kind of tired though. A tired which deserved another glass of good mead instead of needing one. She had traveled through two countries in shorter time than most need to get through one. She had seen nature which she had never seen before. She knew of the blistering white that Hjearta had to offer during winter when she came to the Hjearta Royals' winter palace far from Fenkeep for her first human magic investigation, but never had she seen such splendor and variety of color as she did during the frankly irresponsible few days it took her to reach Fenkeep Castle from the border to and from Monster Country.
When Frioke arrived at the castle with Gerson during morning she was too nervous to understand that she was tired. The fact that she had discovered human magic had brought her joy more than anything else in the world. With it, her promise to the Monster Royals as a Monster Priestess had been fulfilled. With it she had confirmed that a new generation of cooperation between humans and monsters was possible. With it she had celebrated with humans with more song and dance she had ever afforded herself to do before. Before she had a promise to fulfill, but in that brief window of time after she had confirmed the existence of Prince Soulay's aura she had sung songs she didn't understand the words to and danced dances that twisted her legs, feet, arms, hands, and even ears. Another different window, but one she would never tire of watching through just like the one of human-made glass besides her.
She only became tired after the mead had run dry and the food had become crumbs and the song had become hoarse and the dancing had become stumbling.
And even then she continued on with the humans around her. With them all both marveling at her monster form and treating her as one of their own at the same time. During one verse the different vibrato to her monster voice created a second voice which harmonized while in another it blended together with all the other humans'. One step of the dance had her long ears lifting up in a spin like the bottom edge of her robe catching air over her ankles, and in the other the hem of her dress settled like her embarrassed ears did behind her head.
A bashful giggle took over the Monster Priestess as she hung on the feeling of exposure and the simultaneous sense of beauty it gave her.
Humans were capable of magic!
The entire world had turned on its head!
So why should she feel embarrassed about wanting to feel pretty!
More mead!
With a jerky nod the noble Monster Priestess who's future was to teach a young human prince magic threw her head down onto the bottle of unopened mead. Her exposed fang stuck into the cork with a creak. Stopping just short of using her ears as leverage on the bottle like she did during her wild year before deciding to become a priestess, Frioke threw her head back up again to uncork the mead. The taste of honey mixed with fruit dripped onto her tongue from the cork, and she poured her glass full again while sucking in the aroma from the cork.
"To sche Prinschl!" she cheered to herself before drinking around the cork on her fang.
What a day.
What a lovely day!
A day that could't even be worsened by hearing the door open and close indicating that someone had entered and was standing and looking at Frioke waving the bottle around with the cork hanging from her mouth.
Because! Again! Louder than loud!
"Humans! Are! Capable! Of! Magic!"
"You look worse than how Asgore and Toriel did after coming home from sneaking out of the castle to drink on rooftops."
A wide-rimmed felt hat with a yellow string knotted around the black crown landed onto the nearby table with a soundless huff. From the opposite side of the table a chair was lifted up and placed one window-width away from Frioke.
"And you look..."
Confident in how the golden-buttoned dark-blue vest over the white undershirt sat tight and snugly dapper around both Gerson's well-maintained torso and his sturdy shell he seated himself with one golden pant leg folded flat over his other, exposing the long sock underneath tapping his black shoe in the air. "I know what I look like, Frioke," he spouted with radiance and borderline pride. "It is not the first time I've worn this. It was tailored just for me." With a gentle swipe across the brim of his black hat Gerson lifted up the thick string to reveal a sewn-in inscription of his full name.
Gerson Studeto Gacarea.
The gentle swipe was turned into a quick grab of the mead bottle's neck in one seamless motion. "I am sure yours will be inscribed with your name too sooner rather than later, Priestess." Soon a second glass was filled and held a bit more formally between Gerson's three fingers. "While there will have to be some correspondence between the two royal courts it is leaning quite heavily towards you staying here to teach Prince Soulay until he grows up enough to be comfortable traveling to Monster Country to continue your tutorage there."
He took a pleasurable sip from the orange-lit mead and smiled at its taste. "The ambassador from Xoff will of course want Prince Soulay and you to stay at their court too to further teach the boy and for you to find magical candidates there as well. This is a fantastic opportunity for us politically," Gerson explained into the clear liquid in his glass shifting from orange to gold with the slightest tilt. "Not just with raising Prince Soulay, but also to bring the two human countries closer with Monster Country as the common ground."
The festivities were still echoing against the stone walls in the castle halls yet Gerson was already planning ahead decades in the future. Frioke wa surprised that he didn't have anything to say against human knowing magic too.
"A more pressing matter is the fact that humans have the potential to wield magic."
A surprise no more.
"You schan't–"
With a tug Frioke removes the cork stuck in her fang.
"You can't be serious," she hissed more clearly towards Gerson swirling the mead in his glass. With the extreme brightness from the sun outside it was fully clear that he said what he said to provoke Frioke to respond. Even though she knew that Gerson looked for the response she was fully well gonna give it to him without anything held back. "You yourself said that this would bring our two races more closely together. That it would be proving that the Royal Decrees of Helping Hands and Souls are what both humans and monsters needed. Another step on our jointly paved road towards the future."
Sparingly, Gerson took another sip from his glass before explaining what he meant. As he leaned forwards though the entire room seemed to turn darker. Even the bright mead in his glass took on a more subtler tone to its liquid. All that because of the deep shadow cast by Gerson's lean as well as his brow lowering over his eyes. He could have command trees bending over in a hurricane to stand straight in salute for him and pay attention should it be needed, but the way his shoulder tensed underneath his white undershirt told of something different than just military respect and authoritative presence.
A small quiver that made tiny caresses in the fabric.
It told of fear.
"And what will happen when the humans come too close to us monsters?"
The small quiver was even present in his voice.
For even Sir Gerson to lose his composure…
What could it be?
"When humans can not only kill us easily with physical means, but with magical as well?"
When–
Frioke didn't register her glass slipping out of her hand, much less it shattering against the stone floor with a loud crash.
"When the only real threat us monsters present towards the humans becomes second nature to them?"
No.
No!
"They'd never!" Frioke shouted back in protest as she flew up on her legs with her hand slashing a fiery wound in the air between her and Gerson. She would have the entire castle hearing her denial! "The humans would never!"
"Yesterday they would never be able to use magic," came a calmer retort as it pertains to volume yet with just as much emotion behind it. It had Frioke sitting back down in her chair heavily. The fire that danced around her hand with as much energy as she did with the humans less than an hour ago faded away into a hazy glow like how she began to feel about the smiles and laughter the humans shared with her.
Would they really never?
Was there nothing in the world, be it possible or not possible, that would have the humans turning against the monsters? Could Frioke in good faith say that? Not to anyone else, but herself? Could she?
The room turned another shade darker as Frioke's head also fell down. Her ears followed to hide her face behind their long, oblong shapes.
No, no she couldn't. There were plenty of ways the humans could turn on the monsters. None that she wanted to think about in any detail, but still plenty of reasons. Many too about the monsters turning against the humans.
It didn't matter if all the scenarios she thought of weren't possible.
Because humans could wield magic. The impossible had been made possible.
And she was the one to do it.
But it can't have been a mistake! That she refused to accept as fact! She'd be damned if it was a mistake on any parts, be it hers as a monster or any of the humans.
No!
She refuted that!
"I knew it."
Frioke's ears flung up straight in conjunction with her neck snapping up towards a smiling Gerson.
"You and I will figure this out, Frioke, Monster Priestess. We'll make this discovery one for the monsters. We still have the knowledge of magic. The humans will come to us to learn, and we will teach them. We will teach them everything we know! That is the only way for us to make sure they won't turn on us. If they know what we know then they'll never turn on us." With an excited hop Gerson moved his chair closer to Frioke. His smile beamed even brighter in the direct light of the sunset that was turning pinker than the sky had ever been in Monster Country. "If they are monsters in their souls they'll never attack their own. Even if the humans go to war towards each other they'll not go to war with us because we will be too valuable."
Frioke blinked against the brightness. "We'll...make the threat a dependence?"
A singular nod was all Gerson needed to do to confirm.
"I don't know how, but I know you will figure it out in due time, Priestess. You will be the savior of the monsters, not me. Not the Captain of the Royal Guard that handles all the pieces in our political puzzle, but the Monster Priestess who figures out how to make human magic be more powerful for the monsters than it'll ever be for humans!"
The heavy-handed touch of alcohol hit Frioke like a bucket of icy water that–
…
….
…..
"Forgive me, Cter."
…..
…
….
"I'm willing to show you much, but what happened afterwards between me and Gerson. It's...something between just the two of us. Forgive me."
…..
…
"I'll have the guards carry you to your room."
