"You've been mulling over that journal of yours there, Cter."
Said mulling stopped as Cter looked up from her newly acquired journal.
"I don't think I've seen you with it before."
The audible bouncing from the cobblestone road the wooden wheels rolled over permeated the frankly sprawling carriage interior. At least compared to the one Cter traveled to Monster Country with, that is. Had Kurant chosen to sit on the opposite side she'd probably have to yell her question, and even then it wouldn't be guaranteed that Cter would hear it.
Judging by the opened purple curtains fastened on a railing in the ceiling Kurant would be sleeping there at night, so when privacy was needed the carriage had accommodations for it. For the questioning moment though she was sitting leaning forwards on a side-sofa that looked of human-make with her Monster Mage mantle hanging off just one shoulder, the one facing away from Cter, like a towel thrown over the shoulder. Reason being was the brace on her knee which she had just got done adjusting its hinges with some oil and a small fire to help it soak in better.
"It's to keep track of what I've promised to do in Xoff," answered Cter while briefly showing the last page she had scribbled down some reminders on. A list of everything she could remember about what she had promised others about Xoff. Idyll and that one Royal Guard that let her escape, mostly However, each promise needed some planning to do. Luckily it all seemed to converge at Bonny Sallus' clinic which was where Cter and Kurant were heading. Even her new Monster Mage robe of Xoff make was to be delivered there. The carriage had with it some crafted goods to trade for that dress too as was tradition between Monster Country and the other human nations.
Money was good and all, but any reason to show off and trade the respective cultures were good ones. A Xoff-tailored Monster Mage robe for the monsters and a monster-tailored suit for the humans. Exactly to whom the suit was for Cter failed to ask, but she would do it when the opportunity arrived. There was also quite a lot of boxes of Golden Flower tea loaded on the back of the carriage when Cter was quickly briefed by Sir Gerson about the carriage and how the travel would proceed.
Brief was a bit too long a word though for just opening the carriage door and going "Here's where you'll be for the next couple of weeks" and then popping off for lunch. Quite informal by Sir Gerson's standards, since he was the one who'd look over the horizon before even the first stone had been put down on the road towards it.
Or however Frioke formulated it, Cter didn't have her journal with her to note it down exactly, and again what she was writing in it was more art than science to begin with.
Or art rather than magic?
No, didn't work.
Kurant swung her healthy leg over her injured knee while putting the weight carefully on the brace. "You got a lot of plans for things to do in Xoff?" She said it with a playful smirk as if reminding Cter that the two weren't exactly going on holiday. "Depending on the situation of the spread of that sickness we might have to make some detours around the big cities so you won't have opportunity to spend leisurely time, I'm afraid. Even if the contamination has been somewhat contained we still outta stay clear in case of winds moving the miasma."
"Can't have the Monster Mages becoming humans again and getting sick?" Cter replied while closing her journal and putting it to the side. She had written down enough that she needed to remember. "We're supposed to be monsters, after all."
Kurant laughed silently out her nostrils. "You're catching on, Cter." She leaned her head sideways to look out the window which had her braid flopping over her shoulder and almost dragging down her purple mantle with its weight. Even through her extremely narrowed eyes Cter could still see the longing in them. Kurant was from Xoff, and it was clear that she worried about her country of birth. "Although maybe that's not the best phrasing when talking about this."
"Is your...um...village safe?"
The bright, magically woven braid slithered back over the shoulder as Kurant turned her head back towards Cter with a neutral look thinning her already thin lips.
"It's just us two here," Cter argued with a shrug.
"Guess you're right about that," sighed Kurant, which she immediately regretted, but couldn't inhale back. "I didn't mean to sigh as something against you," she defended with some hectic waves of her hands. "Usually I travel alone outside of Monster Country, so company is always welcome. It's just that, well..."
The shine on Kurant's sleeve changed from indicating that she was indeed telling the truth with how it made the Delta Rune on her sleeve stand on end exactly like the panicked hair on her otherwise-curled-up fringe as she apologized for her sigh, to a more subdued and reserved glow of a very dark blue color.
"I don't know exactly how my village has been faring during this epidemic. It would have to be some extremely specifics wind to occur for almost a week straight for the miasma to travel all the way there, but still I can't help but feel worry about my human family." Her hand gripped around her sleeve, but unlike how Cter did it to remind her of Romrom and her home in Hjearta, Kurant seemed to do it for the opposite reason. It calmed the dark blue glow down. "I shouldn't be worrying about such things. Not that I shouldn't worry had the village been in any direct peril, but it is so unlikely that it would happen that it only weighs me down in my duties." Her eyes opened just the slightest, with just a hint of orange peeking out. "Our duties."
"My first duty," Cter corrected as if to remind. "What is my first duty as a Monster Mage, exactly?" She knew what it was in a general sense, and she knew how it would begin, but she was still ill informed on how exactly it would be her duty.
"Sir Gerson and Priestess Frioke didn't tell you about it?"
A day or so after Idyll did, yes. "I am to change Bonny Sallus' magic?"
The inflection to a question was enough for Kurant to understand. She let her sleeve go and readjusted her mantle back over both her shoulders. She didn't tie it together though, but instead let it just hang. Her braid was coiled in her hood like a pet of sorts. "You are to receive your permanent magic from Bonny Sallus to later be able to change his magic, yes. However long that takes, his magic will have to change to allow him to continue his medical research for the benefit of humankind. He is reaching a point where either the humans have to come up with something new when it comes to the science of illnesses, or we monsters have to give him magic that will be more appropriate for his field of study."
With a tensed flex of her right wrist and hand, Kurant conjured up a ball of green magic that she let swirl like a drop of milk inside a stirred mug of tea between her tensed fingers. "Preferably something that would allow healing, but the specifics of the change he and you will have to decide upon." Like a hammer onto an anvil Kurant pushed the swirling magic into her injured knee between her brace. It brought to life a colorful sweep that had a similar viscosity to honey which then collapsed into the knee as Kurant breathed in hard through her nose and clenched teeth. "I'm not supposed to do this more often than once a week, but I figured you'd never seen healing magic applied to a human before?" Kurant breathed out with a quivering exhale. "I'll take your stunned expression as confirmation."
Maybe it was less the healing magic and more Kurant slamming her hand into her injury that made the application look so painful, but either way, yes, Cter did indeed have a stunned expression draining some of the color on her skin enough that her rosy cheeks looked more like sunburns. She became almost as fair-skinned as Kurant was.
"Maybe I outta begin to tell you why healing magic can't heal my knee first so that you can get an idea of what needs to be changed with the magic. I've seen you look at it before, and I'm appreciative of you not bringing it up even if you've been understandably curious about it." Kurant used some stasis magic to untie her boot so that she could stretch out her knee straight on the sofa and not have it bump with each small stone the carriage ran over. She had to cover one of the windows with its curtain though as the sun was shining straight into her face from shifting position on the sofa. She replaced the shut-out sunlight with one of her own magical one which she gave a nice and soft candlelight-feel to.
"Like you said earlier, it's only us two here, and the reason I don't want to talk about my injury that much is because I know it pains Kry more than it does me. You're not the only one who's hurt friends with magic, Cter."
While the soft-spoken parallel was in good faith Cter still had to shake off the cold shiver running up her spine. She'd listen though, it was important to her to hear the situation from the other side. While she had listened plenty with Idyll, with Kurant Cter wasn't responsible for the injury, so it was a world a difference even if it was parallel.
"I was born with it," Kurant began while tapping on her brace with a knuckle. "Took me a year or more to learn how to walk than the other kids in the village, especially my siblings. Since we were, still are, farmers they we had no real way of getting treatment for it other than me taking it a bit slower than the others." With a curious tilt of her head Kurant glanced down at her sleeve and then at Cter.
Cter knew what Kurant was thinking. Why tell a story when you can show? "I am in no way comfortable with trying it with a human," Cter said directly while not missing a beat. The answer was straight from her soul, and even if her mind would have somehow been convinced, her soul would never do it.
The Delta Rune on the back of Cter's hand stood up, as if to put up a wall before an attack. The fierce denial of the silently proposed notion was as constant in her hardened stare as it was the equally hardened slicing motion of her hand and the immense flux vibrating her aura. "Make this another asterisk to us being monsters, but even with the knowledge that the Cooperative Connection is a lie I really see no way in me accessing a human's memories. The catalyst of memories works outwards, and not inwards."
"Maybe it does today," Kurant replied while softly raising both of her bushy eyebrows. "But maybe tomorrow? It all depends on how far we can push your new magic, Cter." She relaxed back onto the sofa's armrest. "We have plenty of time to figure it out though," she offered as a friendly gesture. "More so than what normal human mages have." She raised her sleeve up in front of her to show. "My guess is that you've already guessed it, or maybe Frioke told you, but since we have more magic available to us the prolonging effect of being exposed to magic runs deeper, so to speak. Boss Monster magic to boot." With a snap the conjured light focused onto the middle of her left leg. "Or to knee, in my case."
Cter wondered when she would become so used to her powerful magic that she could play around it with such showmanship like Kurant could with her conjured light. Same thought applied to when Cter saw the three older Monster Mages play around in the dining hall by throwing chairs and magical barriers at each other effortlessly. Like children packing snowballs and throwing them at their friends.
How old was Kurant again? Three...four generations older than Cter, but looking like she only was one older. Kry, from what she understood, was like six or seven generations older, and while it showed on him, it only did so in ways that commanded wisdom and elderly respect with his slicked-back hair with a matured color as well as just his stride which showed that he recognized each and every part of the floor or ground below him as an old friend.
It can't be that it was the Monster Royal's personality that shone through the Monster Mages after so much exposure and intimate usage of their magic, could it?
And would it change Cter too?
"Unfortunately, slower than other doesn't really work for a farmer's family. Not when things had to be done." Kurant spun her arm around in a vertical circle, with a trail of cyan magic following her hand and forming into a set of farming tools that hovered in stasis. The combination of magic had her aura feel like two different expressions of emotion at once, but in harmony. Cter couldn't help but poke at it with her own, and as Kurant let the exploration occur without acknowledging it more than a consenting nod, it was clear to Cter that she was to pay attention magically too to learn as well as listen.
"Tilling the land, planting the seeds, taking care of the animals, taking care of the flowers, harvesting, the list goes on. Each morning I was told to take it easy, but each lunch I was told that I needed to help out. At dinner mother tended my knee with hot water to ease the aching."
Kurant paused for a bit so that Cter could take in both the magic and the story.
"However, when I was around nine or ten I began to grow into my injury. My body had more muscle to it which circumvented the injury. I became stronger enough that wherever my injury was located in my knee exactly was not taking on weight any longer." Kurant drew on her knee with her finger to show. "My weight went around the injury and not through it." Drew first around her kneecap and then over it. Afterwards she lifted the brace up a bit to be more visible to Cter. "Sadly, as you can see, a lot of that muscle has escaped me," Kurant chuckled with a hint of dramatic forlorn. "I still have my broad shoulders, wide stance, and brash walk because of my upbringing, but it's...um...softened over my years studying magic. Like with metal you have to soften it to reforge and shape it differently, and with how different I've been shaped, from working at my family's farm to becoming one of the thr– four most powerful mages in the world, it's no wonder I'm still soft from it."
A confident grin shone brighter on Kurant's face than her conjured light. "But that's not to say that my soul isn't the sharpest it could ever be." She slammed her sleeved hand shut, letting purple magic seep from her sleeve and surround it to be indistinguishable from the dark purple of her mantle. The only semblance of pale was from the strands of the Delta Rune on the back of her sleeve rising and swaying in the magic like grass in a wind, the rest of her exposed arm became a flowing extension of the purple of her mantle.
It didn't take long before the wind became a storm as Kurant showed with gusto what her soul could manifest!
With a stomp of her hand flat down onto the red, cross-stitched carpet covering the carriage floor, the accumulated purple drained like suckled honey into the carriage, covering its entire interior with a purple haze that tickled at Cter aura and soul wherever she touched either the sofa she was sitting on or the carpet her feet were resting on. She noticed a silence that gripped every fiber of both her magical and physical being, but she couldn't believe it.
Kurant's proud smile from her angled head told enough to convince her though.
The sound of the cobblestone road underneath the carriage had ceased, yet Cter felt that they were still moving forwards.
The deafening silence didn't stick for long though, as it was shattered by angry knocking from the front-facing window. The driver did not even wait for it to be opened from the inside, and instead threw it open hastily.
"I almost fell off my seat!" the hooded driver shouted into the carriage with one arm desperately holding on to the roof of the carriage. "Set us down, Kurant! You'll disturb the barrels of Royal Purple!"
A gradual sensation of falling lasted for a couple of seconds before the sound of the wheels rolling across cobble was again heard through both the vibrations of the carriage and through the opened front window. "Thank you!" huffed the hooded driver as they closed the window again like a disappointed parent.
Cter sat breathing in and out to have her stomach calm itself down and not make a mess of the upholstery on the first day of the travel. She'd rather not spend the rest of the journey with all the windows opened, even during the night.
"I...maybe I should've warned you beforehand," admitted Kurant as she sat up straight again on her sofa. "I've not had a lot of reasons to show my magic off lately. Haven't needed to travel outside Monster Country to check up on operations in human countries for a while now and those are the best, maybe even only, reasons I've had to demonstrate what a Monster Mage is capable of." She briefly focused stasis onto the jug of water held with a metal fastening on a table between her and Cter before deciding against using magic for the time being. "Water?"
Yes.
"Although I could walk normally when needed I still had to work a bit slower than the others," Kurant continued while pouring and serving Cter some water. She took the opportunity to pour herself some too. "The agitation could only be hidden for so long once my heart began thumping. Being reminded once a minute when walking I could ignore, but once every ten seconds, if not each other second?" She took a sip for dramatic effect. "That was not possible. Still I had to keep up since my family depended on me. My mom bought me my own towel though for soaking my knee during the evenings. Spider silk from Jarasevo in the same stripy pattern that Queen Toriel had given Prince Soulay."
The second sip was aborted as Kurant's laughter through her nostrils pushed away the water from her lips. Had they been fuller she might've reached, but alas. Her aura flustered with the laughter too, rounding softly.
"You have a guess as to how we discovered that I had potential for magic, Cter."
"Still had to be confirmed though?" Cter replied before drinking some more to calm her stomach. The angle she brought the cup up to her lips had her hitting the edge of her chin, and when she looked down to check for any spillage, she noticed that she was leaning forwards eagerly while she listened.
"When the traveling monster merchant returned for the next season my father invited him over for dinner so that he could asses according to the Soul Surveying. I'm sure you're familiar with that, aren't you Cter?"
True, she was. They were sitting together as Monster Mages because of that. "I had Romrom surveying me. Groomed me to be a human mage almost as soon as I was born. My dad likes to poke fun that Romrom almost swooped me up first before he could. Says that he had to elbow his way in front of her and that he felt murder from her despite her being just a single corvian monster."
"Stood with feathers lifted and ruffled with her arms folded huffing when he treated you like a human baby rather than a monster one?" joked Kurant with her arms mimicking the disobedient gesture.
Cter laughed together with Kurant. "Romrom would never admit it, but yes."
"Were the other kids in your village jealous about your magic?" There was a hint of something in Kurant's voice just then.
"Not really, no," answered Cter without looking further into the hint. "I say groom, but it was mostly Romrom talking about magical stories rather than human ones when she read me goodnight while mom were out of town with her goods."
"Seamstress, right? From what I understand from your file, that is."
"Yes, seamstress. Romrom convinced dad and mom quickly that I was destined to become a human mage, and they were supportive when I decided myself that I wanted to be one."
Kurant lifted up her sleeve to have Cter lift her up as well. "And now you are a Monster Mage, Cter."
That she was. A Monster Mage.
That she was.
"Some advice to you from an older Monster Mage now that we have begun talking about family, Cter." Kurant breathed in deeply through her nose while clutching her mug of water with both hands. "Visit them. I'll make sure to have your next assignment be somewhere in Hjearta so that you can, if I can. Probably we'll have you go visit Professor Leraull and maybe do some mingling at the Hjearta court at Fenkeep Castle. Nothing fancy."
Nothing fancy? Visiting the Hjearta castle wasn't fancy? And Kurant just waved dismissively while saying it.
What?
"I meant no real heavy assignment," Kurant explained seeing Cter's perplexed scowl. "Just to meet the new Royal Mage there. With the epidemic calming down he's been called back to Hjearta so that he can be sworn in officially and not just due to Frioke's recommendation. He's proven himself quite well with his ice magic, after all."
Kurant's forehead folded in thought, giving her the wrinkles she should have had with her age. "I think they will be Royal Mages plural at Fenkeep Castle what with Lerjung showing no interest in stepping down from her position. It won't be an issue with Hjearta having two Royal Mages, but I'm sure that Xoff will want to have two as well to balance out." The wrinkles flattened out as she shrugged the thought off. "But that's not something for you to worry about when you're at Fenkeep Castle. You'll be there to show that you are a new Monster Mage the same that we are traveling to Xoff for. We'll schedule the Hjearta trip so that it swings by your village too. Romrom was a Village Elder, right? I'm sure we can send some stuff along as tribute for her housing a Monster Mage on such a short notice."
The wink was really, really superfluous, but it got a good chuckle out of the two Monster Mages, as well as something from the depths of both Cter's heart and soul.
"Thanks."
Kurant nodded solemnly. "I'm doing this for me, believe it or not. I made a mistake with only having that old spider silk towel as something to remember my family with." Her sleeve was again lifted before her, but this time with a more distant pair of eyes staring at it. "When you are used to memories of others being at the literal touch of your fingertips and the metaphorical touch of your heart. When you've taken for granted that memories can just be summoned vividly so much that it has become second, if not first, nature to you. It's then when you've become more monster than human that the reminder that others are human hits you harder." Her sleeve and arm fell down tiredly on her injured knee. "And your soul refuses to consider the one part of you that is unmistakably human an injury."
The carriage slowed to a stop as the two humans looked the other in the eyes without saying a single word more. It wasn't until a minute or so later that the front window was knocked on and Kurant turned away to answer the driver opening the window to inform that Kurant was needed outside for confirmation of the travel outside Jarasevo by the Royal Guards stationed at the gates. The ice transport from Hjearta that was to accompany them were at the ready as well.
"Acknowledged," Kurant said as she stood up carefully while leaning on her healthy leg. "Thank you." Before she opened the carriage door though she stopped and faced Cter again. "And thank you too, Cter."
But for what?
"For being human with me."
With limped steps Kurant dismounted out the carriage door.
