"Clouds of rain ahead, Monster Mage."
And Cter who had just managed to doze off on the roof of the carriage in the sun…
"How far?" she asked the driver while keeping her sleeve across her eyes with no real motivation to remove it. She had been on the roof for less than half an hour and had just begun to warm up comfortably from the cloud-less sky. The wind was blowing away from the enormous chunks of ice following behind as well.
Well, it was cloud-less up until some ways ahead on the horizon which the hooded driver could see. Cter was not sure if they had better sight than she had, but in either case her time on the roof was no more for her, but she was damn determined to get the most out of it. She enjoyed Kurant's company very much, and the carriage was much larger than the one she had traveled to Monster Country with after she graduated from Soul's School.
Maybe graduated, that is.
In any case, be it if she graduated or not from Soul's School, Cter needed some time out of the carriage for herself. Just to collect her thoughts and relax alone. Kurant understood. In fact, she was the one that suggested it to Cter. "Head up on the roof, why don't you?" she asked Cter with a suggestive nod out the door. "Just climb up with the lock as a foothold. It can hold your weight. It did Sund's."
For some strange reason Cter had a guess he'd done it before, yeah. They were on a long, lonesome road a day or so after crossing the Xoff border so there were not a lot of civilization to quirk eyebrows at a Monster Mage snoring on a carriage rooftop, so really why shouldn't Cter take the opportunity. The ice transport in rows behind her were busy enough with keeping the large pieces cool in the direct Xoff sun for them to bother with her relaxing on top of her carriage.
With her pent-up energy she barely needed the foothold to haul herself up onto the roof. The more flat landscape was not as picturesque as Hjearta nor Monster Country, but there was still a beauty to it in its many shades of yellow and brown. Not as much green grass, but more faded shrubbery. Did not lack in any vegetation, but it had the color which Cter had grown up to associate with the boring and colorless part of autumn. While the climate was still more temperate than in Hjearta autumn was still called fall in Xoff due to the same cultural and natural reasons. Just not as much visible evidence of moisture, so to speak.
Except the dark clouds ahead of the carriage…
"If it is moving away from us, wake me up in ten minutes."
Moving away?
"And if it is moving towards us, wake me up in fi–"
A cold drop splashed violently against Cter's forehead, causing her to jolt up to a sit with a startled yelp that likely had Kurant wondering what the hell Cter was doing on the roof. She looked behind her, but there was no way that the drop came from the ice transports. The wind was blowing their cold away from her, after all.
Cter's sleeve was instinctively covered with a layer of fire that began to sizzle as the drops became more and more frequent from the sky. She focused on it to have it fade away and not use more of her limited magic that Frioke had sent with her for the journey. Cter was in no way starving and forced to ration the magic, but it was better to save it for a metaphorically rainy day rather than a literal one which plunked at her nose coldly.
From the depth of her heart a primal need for understanding bubbled up. Neither through her monster or human knowledge could she explain why she had to be surprised by the rain! "How come you did not see the cloud earlier?" Cter almost hissed at the hooded driver. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"Watching the road is more important than watching the sky," was the answer, served with fact and no emotion. "Pebbles that ruin the wheels are more commonly found on the road rather than in the sky, Monster Mage."
Hopefully that did not jinx it.
"That is not to say that I do not watch the sky at all, Monster Mage," the driver continued without being asked to. Their hood turned slightly over their shoulder, but not enough to allow any light into the dark chasm that was the substitute for their face. "It just so happen that when I checked just a second ago the cloud was just about over us."
Cter didn't fully believe that. "You did not notice that the road you were looking at got much darker ahead?"
The silenced pause made the increasing dripping audible, which had Cter deciding that whatever answer the driver was concocting would not be worth getting soaked for. She should also climb down back into the carriage before it became too slippery for her to attempt to.
The Monster Mages already had one with a bad knee. Chances were they didn't need another.
"Oh, you're back already?" piqued Kurant from her parchment before seeing the darkened landscape out the opened door behind the swaying body of her colleague. "Ah, I see," she correctly concluded as she reached for a nearby blanket that she threw over to Cter wiping her face. "We might hear some muffled jubilation from the ice transports behind us. They usually try to plan their journeys to have at least some perspiration for them to help deliver more of their product to where it is needed, but with us escorting them we did make a change in their plans." The parchment was rolled up. "Guess they were lucky."
Cter peered a pair of unamused eyes over the bend of the purple blanket over her fingers.
"Not as much you though," tittered Kurant. "Hopefully you don't get a cold. Although since we are heading towards Bonny Sallus clinic that might not be an issue. Although again maybe we shouldn't add more work for him to do what with the epidemic, even if it is calming down." Kurant snapped alight a nice crackling fire which she sent over to Cter who moved it to hover over her left shoulder. "And yes when I say close I mean relatively close."
"Still a week or so?" It was easy to lose track of the days when the vast majority was spent inside a carriage. It had happened when Cter traveled to Monster Country, and it sure as hell happened with her first travel to Xoff as well. She had to figure out a way to make the days go faster. "I know it was two weeks left a while ago, but that while I don't know exactly how long ago it was."
"Six days including today," Kurant answered with half a nod. "Depending on the report of the miasma we'll get from our next stop tomorrow perhaps four."
"Four including today?"
"Yes."
And more importantly, especially for Cter since it is her first time in Xoff. "And what about..."
Kurant quirked a smile which was just as excited for Cter as Cter was for herself. The childlike wonder glimmered in both the Monster Mages' eyes. "Mt. Ebott we'll see with either road, Cter. Don't you worry about that."
Mt. Ebott…
It stood somewhere behind that bend of the dark-gray horizon looming with its obscuring presence. Cter had felt the mountain's aura as soon as the carriage crossed into Xoff. She had always heard that Mt. Ebott would be the place where human magic was most likely to be found due to how since forever there had always been something magical about it. The monsters felt it clearly, and for humans there was a slight hint that something could be. Something that sparked curiosity about human magic.
How she and Idyll would enjoy every single step up its height…
It all would come ahead one day with her and her best friend looking up at Mt. Ebott together. Oh how she longed for that! That day could not come sooner!
"You make sure to remember this excitement, Cter," Kurant advised with more care and thought than a mother would her child. There was still some lingering undertone in her voice from weeks before when she told Cter about her knee. About remembering to keep the human memories alive too. "It'll strengthen your soul too and allow for more magic. It's easy to forget that human magic is a two-way process after years of practicing it. You've helped us three remember it too, you know?"
Come to think of it, Kurant never finished telling about her knee, didn't she? She got to the point where she was about to begin explaining how Kry fit into all of it, but with how long Kurant spoke with the Royal Guard at the edge of Jarasevo some many days ago Cter had all but forgotten to ask for Kurant to continue. It just slipped her mind. With it raining outside was there something better to do?
She'd have to ask carefully though since it was a sensitive subject to Kurant, after all. Equivalent to Cter being asked about how she killed and then brought back Idyll, Cter would very much guess. Sund and Kry most likely had similar stories to tell, Cter would also guess. Maybe Kry's was in some way connected to Kurant's? With how much Kurant was hesitant about it?
Yeah…
"So, Kurant?" Cter asked timidly after wiping the last moisture off her brow. Her hair was still a bit soaked, but it helped with the slight itching from being in constant contact with the cushions. "We spoke at the beginning of our journey about your..." Cter let her words trail off as she indicated with her blink towards Kurant's brace on her knee. "And I don't want to force you to speak about it if you don't want, but you said that Kry was involved, and I believe it is good if I know about it."
She could hear how she didn't really believe in her own convincing. It wasn't really one in good faith as she put the burden on Kurant to tell.
Damn.
Even as Cter's let her true intentions show in her aura how she asked was still said out loud. It sounded exactly how she didn't want anyone to ask her about that night where she discovered a new type of magic…
A silent final flick of Kurant's feather-pen later into the reservoir of off-purple ink, the Monster Mage leaned more weight behind her on the sofa's backrest and away from her knee. The deeper dents in the fabric made that fact obvious to Cter, who reversely leaned weight away to sit up straight to show that she respected Kurant's decision to tell even as Cter made a rather bad show of her question.
"I had relatively recently become the second Monster Mage," Kurant began while she stuffed a tuft-edged pillow underneath the bend of her knee for support. "Had just managed to map the interior of the castle in my mind instead of consulting Queen Toriel about it," she explained as she waved her sleeve for emphasis. "I say that because I don't remember exactly how long I'd been a Monster Mage before...it...happened. I remember that the day before I felt pride in finally helping a human delegate make his way through the castle without really thinking about it. A convoy from Xoff, he was. Visited to inform Kry and I that we would receive the highest accolades afforded to foreigners. It was a gesture of both goodwill from our previous home country that the Monster Mages were only from Xoff, a streak ruined by Sund and then continued to be ruined by you, Cter." The levity was faux in Kurant's chuckle. She knew that she could spout as many tangents as she wanted, but sooner or later she'd have to tell the truth. "Pretty sure that Dr. Sallus will be serving us coffee and or tea with those accolades as coasters he's collected so many by now."
Another fake chuckle passed by longer than it deserved to be, forcing Kurant to continue after a long sigh through her nose.
"As well as the gesture of goodwill it was also a move to recognize that the two of us were officially citizens of Monster Country, and monsters as well. With Kry alone as a Monster Mage he could be kept in a limbo of sorts. To exist as both a human of Xoff and as a monster of Monster Country. When I was given the title though it was decided to draw the line and have us be on one side of the fence for the future. We became signs of trust from Xoff. The most powerful mages in the hands of the monsters. If we were in Xoff's court there would be tension from Hjearta, and vice versa. But with us being monsters though?" Kurant clapped her hands and threw her palms open in front of her. "Just slides right past that, doesn't it? No need to worry about the most powerful mages being in the hands of the other human country if they instead are considered monsters and pledge their allegiance with them. We might be the most powerful mages, but we're still only fewer than a handful so if the monsters decided for some monumentally idiotic reason to attack we'd still be outnumbered by all the other human mages. A handful of powerful humans won't change the fact that even a human child can kill a monster if the child so wanted to."
And all of that was relevant to the injury how?
"I can see the confusion in your eyes, Cter. In your folded brow too. Mostly though I feel it in your aura. I said I was gonna tell you, but I have to preface to make sure you know the..." Kurant tilted her head impatiently while gritting her teeth as if trying to shake loose her words. "Not anxiety, but unfamiliar concoction of emotions that Kry and I felt when we held those heavy medals in our heads. How the ribbon colored with Xoff's flag hanging between our fingers showed that we were no longer citizens of our human country. How we were not humans at all! We didn't reject the idea. Hell, we welcomed it as we knew it would help relations in the political sense. A small sacrifice of nomenclature for the sake of peace."
It wasn't really nomenclature that was asked of Cter though. She signed a lot of parchments with both bad writing from a human's hand and crow's feet in a monster's hand as some of the parchments had to be signed first from Cter, the human, for her to be able to sign the parchments asking for the signature of Cter, the monster.
That was for the nomenclature.
Once that was done and Sir Gerson collected the signed parchments for copies to both Hjearta and Xoff he began to tell a similar story to what Kurant was telling. About the roles of the Monster Mages and how they were balances elevated to lead human magic forwards, and more importantly to make sure that any new magic went through the monsters first. That is what the monsters had as security not to be attacked and enslaved by the humans. The same worry he'd voiced to Frioke when she first discovered human magic in Prince Soulay.
While his words were a bit...overly pessimistic, he was still correct when Cter were given some time to think about it. She might not agree with the length of which the consequences would happen, but she did agree with the thinking behind it. Had the monsters not known how to help the first human mages to control fire, ice, stasis, conjuration, etc. there would have been deaths stemming from the magic as it would run wild from not being properly controlled by the human, even with the fake Cooperative Connection at hand…and at sleeve. Proper death and not the metaphor that laid behind the concept of human magic. That would have put a serious hamper on the exploration of human magic, perhaps even to the point of being considered a threat from the monsters instead of a blessing.
The whitest of lies.
Seems like Cter had the luxury of being told it outright rather than having to experience and figure it out. Damn, she'd also feel conflicted if she'd been given a medal from Hjearta after Sir Gerson had finished talking to her and made sure that she was willing to dedicate her life to being a Monster Mage. Asked with his voice, but assured with his aura. Cter answered with her voice, and assured with her aura as well with magic from Sir Gerson. It was a bond even stronger than that of ink onto magical parchment.
"Nomenclature it proved to not only be though, as I'm sure you know, Cter."
Yes, yes she did. Very much so.
"I especially felt that the more than-nomenclature became a bit too much. When I slipped my tongue and called either Kry or myself a human I felt that I was betraying trust. That maybe I couldn't be what they needed me to be. Why was my magic special? If I wasn't a human then why did I feel human? Why did I have a personal outhouse if I was supposed to be a monster?" Kurant could have gone on, but she made her point pretty clear.
It could just as well have been Cter that said it all. It was both a comfort knowing that someone else had felt the same way, but at the same time it didn't really please Cter knowing that someone else had gone through it as well. "And it just kept piling on until it began to sprout from my knee. The pain when I was young and without muscle came back to me. My body had lost muscle as I improved as a mage, and then with me becoming a Monster Mage… I'd become more monster, but my knee refused to accept it. It hurt as human pain. Hurt because of an exclusively human reason."
Cter was surprised that Kurant could talk with such fervor and not be interrupted due to her knee. Like with her sleeve the pain must have been linked to her emotions. So why didn't it hurt when she spoke about a memory that she said before was painful to her? Something that made her limp talking about everything before the event?
Was it because she was talking about it as a human? Fully as a human, and not just for a bit which only gave her a limp?
Cter was again at the edge of her seat with intrigue and curiosity. All due to how she could help later, and not a single thought otherwise.
"That was when Kry proposed we try and do something else than heal it." Kurant's eyes strained as if wanting to close completely. "To try and make it monster."
Make it...monster?
"How?" trickled from Cter's tongue as her stomach began to turn in recognition. "How do you mean by that?" She recognized the hesitation in Kurant's voice. It was the exact the same as she had before.
"Kry had learned of a monster that had recently graduated with a medical degree from one of Xoff's most pristine universities. First of his kind. Top of his class too. Helped develop the miasma theory as his doctorate thesis. As close to an equivalent to a Monster Mage, but with a monster studying science instead." With a nod towards the front of the carriage Kurant raised her brows as the answer was quite obvious who this monster was. "Bonny was too quite eager about the proposal. The plan was for Kry to inscribe my knee with lines and have Bonny enchant it similar to a sleeve. Then, because of my constant magical aura, it would act as a monster part rather than a human one to my soul, and would therefor be more susceptible to healing magic to the point where it would heal something I was born with."
After some careful groping and pulling of the skin of her knee Kurant managed to angle her knee enough so that Cter could see a well-healed scar stretching the length of the left side of Kurant's knee. "With Bonny acting as the human and doing the medicinal part of the surgery and Kry acting as the monster with healing around the incision so that the pain wouldn't overwhelm me, something else that Bonny had developed during his studies, the operation went smoothly. If the healing magic afterwards hasn't healed the bone, or maybe if its healed itself, if not either, then I should still have some of the lines inscribed on my kneecap. Inert ones though, as what happened afterwards wasn't as smooth as planned."
Kurant's aura took on a bitter feeling to it.
"The invasive aura asserting itself as alive inside my body from Kry's inscription and Bonny's memories had my soul rejecting it. We've not figured out another way of describing what happened besides outright rejecting. The pain I felt from my knee when it–"
Cter lunged forwards to help as Kurant put up a closed fist to her mouth to quell the wave of unease that turned her pale skin whiter than snow. She seemed to converge over her knee as if it was her only possession in the world.
"I'm fine!" she shouted as Cter neared. It had both of them flinch back startled. "I'm…" Kurant whispered with a distant look to her eyes. "Sorry," she spoke after returning from the horizon only she could see. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell."
Cter understood.
"That was when we learned that my soul would never accept my knee to be anything else than human. Kry and Bonny told me that I screamed for them to not touch it. To never ever touch it again like they did. That is was mine. That it was mine alone and not theirs. That it was human, and not monster." Kurant shook her head which seemed to unravel her braid a bit. "Me telling you this now is the first time those words have been spoken from my lips. Both Frioke and Sir Gerson had a rough couple of days afterwards trying to make sense of the situation and what exactly happened. We were harshly reprimanded for our actions, which is understandable since I could have died. The entire castle shook when my soul denied the attempt at taking something away from it. My aura burst through the walls of the room we used and frightened the Royal Guards stationed nearby in the hallway."
A second-long pause laid heavier than the sound of rain on the carriage rooftop.
"The human soul is something that is itself, we proved that day. We knew before from how human magic works, but that day we had proof of it. Bonny Sallus would later make me this brace to help alleviate my chronic condition that is now both physical and magical, hence the need for me to use bursts of healing magic on it so that I fill the magical lines with me rather than risk someone else's aura being inscribed on them passively for my soul to then reject and make things worse."
"Singe my soul..." Cter quietly whispered as she sank her forehead down on her clasped hands. "Singe my soul..."
Kurant leaned back on her sofa with her head facing out the window. "Singe it indeed, Cter." She watched the rain keep on pouring. "Sing both our souls."
And the rain kept on pouring.
