"Just give me another minute, please."

"Some tea?"

"Please to that too, and thank you."

A weary sigh fluttered between the arms of the Fourth Monster Mage sat with her clasped hands pushed against her forehead. The inter-mingling fingers of skin and magical sleeve clenched harder with each recurring wave of short-term memory crashing against Cter's mind and aura. Like a heavy cover of dark clouds, her aura weighed the room down, smothering the light from the large window into a dramatic and self-loathing darkness that Cter had to indulge in for a while before she could continue.

"Why?" she asked herself while tapping her clasped hands against her forehead rhythmically. "Why? Why? Why?" With each tap her body loosened until it could barely keep itself upright in the chair. "Why did I try that?"

"You did not do anything wrong, Cter," said Priestess Frioke sitting in her chair with some tea of her own. "You are not used to your new magic, and that's not anything to be ashamed of."

"There was a reason that we wanted you to demonstrate it to us Royal Councilors first though," Sir Gerson added as a layer on top of Frioke's statement. "So that we would not have a repeat of what happened the last time a Monster Mage wanted to demonstrate his own magic."

Another sigh fluttered into the office, from the Third Monster Mage in question. "Yes..." Sund followed up after his sigh. "But with how fast Cter has been progressing as a Monster Mage I had faith in that she would be able to do better than what I did."

"With the tone of your voice being that of self-lamenting I am of the theory that you pushed Cter partly because of yourself," voiced Kry with a rather-disciplinary tone in contrast to Sund's. "You said you were over it earlier today before she arrived, that the jump you demonstrated in later generations of mages being higher than that of generations prior. I had faith in you saying that."

Through Cter's loose fringe she met Sund's eyes. It was a pair of apologetic ones, wanting to move to the side and look away, but didn't. "Please forgive me for insisting rather than cautioning that I did something similar, Cter."

"Kry and I should apologize as well for not also speaking up," added Kurant as she handed Cter her tea. "We were eager as well to see your new magic."

The three Monster Mages reflected orange-brown in the tea that Cter looked down into. In her aura and soul she felt that they were genuine in their apology. Why they wouldn't she didn't have a clue about, but it was nice to let the genuine wash over her for comfort. "I accept the apology," Cter said to the reflections in her tea, "and implore us to move away from it, if we can?"

"Perhaps from that particular situation." Sir Gerson's chair behind his desk squeaked as he sat
down in it. "However, we can not move past your new magic just yet."

"It's your new magic, after all," said Priestess Frioke with a tilt to her head which swayed her long ears. "And a beautiful magic at that, if you allow me to be a bit leisurely about it." While she was in the process of being informal, she took the opportunity to draw attention to Cter's hair with an enamored motion of her hand. "Same with what you have done with your hair. Braiding is popular in Hjearta, I've heard."

Well...Cter did ask for the conversation to move on, didn't she? "Y...yeah," she uttered with a bit of shock straightening her in her chair. She lifted her collected braid that rested on her right shoulder braided with the left side of her hair, leaving the right side loose. "I had some time while I waited to be invited up to Fenkeep Castle, so I decided to experiment a bit." She pulled her collected braid behind her head to show where it collected from the multiple braids on the left side of her head of hair. "Spiraled like my sleeve." Like a duvet over a sleeping child, Cter placed her collected braid back on her right shoulder. "And then loose and still human," she finished while tossing the loose right side of her head of hair. "An idea I had in the spur of the moment. Braided it with stasis magic. Took half an hour or so the first time I did it, but the more I do it the faster it should be."

"It looks good on you."

Sund was a bit too quick with his compliment. It didn't sound natural, and more that he said it because he was being conscious with trying to make up for before.

He tried though, which was the important part.

"I second that," said Kurant in solidarity to both Sund and Cter. "I guessed before you explained that your braids represented the spiraling magic on your sleeve, so it should be something noticeable without explanation." To test that theory she cocked her head to Kry who's eyes narrowed in dismay. "What about you, Kry? What are your thoughts about Cter's hair representing a Monster Mage's duality so elegantly?"

Kry's eyes shifted over to Cter, softening along the way. "As Kurant so subtly hinted at, I know next to nothing about aesthetics, be it clothing or hair." He bounced his eyes back towards Kurant, narrowing into daggers that almost cracked his glasses one more time before settling softly back to Cter. "With that said, I am a bit jealous that I did not figure something similar out on my own." He dragged his hand through the dark, solid curls in his hair that ran the risk of cutting through his skin. "But even if I had figured something I would not be the one to wear it."

"You doubt your abilities as a Monster Mage?" rebutted Kurant with a snicker. "Not even with King Asgore on your sleeve you can't manipulate your hair as you want?"

Kry shrugged the tease off of him. "My lingering humanity that I can never make monster."

During the exchange, Sir Gerson's lips curled more and more, with the small tuft of hair remaining on his head looking disappointed in a strange kinda way. "While all of your discoveries from your journey to Hjearta are important," he had to force through gritted teeth against his will. "May I ask that we keep focus on your new magic as it is the most important one?" He weathered the room glancing over to him while trying to not make it obvious that they were all looking at his mostly bald head. It was a baldness that spoke of wisdom and respect at any other time, but with the conversation topic that he so crassly tried to move away from, his head reflected a twinkle of jealousy from the light through the office window. "If you wouldn't mind calling upon it for us here so that we could make a proper assessment of it?"

Cter warmed herself with some tea before she agreed. "As you wish, Sir Gerson." Having been complimented on her hair Cter felt a bit better about herself, so she extended her sleeved arm to be visible for the room. "It's magic that I was told by my soul that I wanted to have."

"Your...soul?" asked Frioke with her ears folding at their middle. "How do you mean by your soul?" Before Cter could answer Frioke extended a question towards Sund too. "Your magic wasn't told to you by your soul."

He shook his head. "It was to better learn how to bring humans and monsters together that I developed my barricade magic so that I would feel intimately what it meant to separate in order to better bring together." His eyes landed on Kurant and Kry who looked uncomfortable at what Cter had said. In an effort to not have them fall too much into their memories, he rolled his shoulders with an accompanying chuckle. "Had my soul been with me on that one it would've suggested a less-convoluted way, I reckon. It didn't pop out and waggle a magical finger at me though so perhaps it agreed at least on one of the convoluted points?" It helped ever so little, but it did help. "So in what way do you mean that your soul spoke to you about it, Cter?"

She told the Royal Councilors about Fenkeep Castle. About the Royal Mage of Ice, the Royal Butler, and the two's relationship, as well as how Terri's magic was. The shock from the room was lesser than she had anticipated when she told about him unknowingly using the truth of the Cooperative Connection with a negative memory towards Huvett and Huvtvao, which likely stemmed from her prefacing that he was completely unaware of it and that he seemed to be more steeled towards the lie of the Cooperative Connection after Cter had talked to him and let him lament him growing into his title as a Royal Mage.

"And you are absolutely confident in this?" Sir Gerson still asked though with brow furrowed and finger tapping on his desk, punctuating with a harder tap at the end of his question. "There is no doubt in your mind about it?"

"None at all," Cter said both with words and through her aura. "Next time Priestess Frioke meets him she should make doubly sure though. With the implications about a true Cooperative Connection outside us Monster Mages we should have more than just one without any doubts at all stemmed from verifying in person."

Sir Gerson nodded with a strange, almost surreal emotion to his expression. "Well spoken, Monster Mage." Was he...impressed? "Your judgment is equal to the rest of ours, but more auras and eyes on a problem is always good to have. We might be able to assume that the Hjearta Royal Mage is alone in this, but it is clear that we need to begin with a contingency plan for when, and it is when from today forward, the Cooperative Connection is found to be deeper than taught."

"A next step in humans and monster becoming closer?" suggested Kurant.

"That is my first thinking, yes. We will need to figure out how to bend it our way just how we did with the Cooperative Connection to begin with. It should only be necessary to make some modifications to it, and if it is a Monster Mage that discovers the modification we can again leverage it for the monsters benefit." Before the room could look at Cter, Sir Gerson cleared his throat to halt the turning necks. "It would be a job for the Fifth or Sixth Monster Mage."

It was a slight blow to Cter's ego, but she understood what Sir Gerson meant by it. As a counter to the blow to her ego she felt some slight anticipation with helping either the Fifth or Sixth Monster Mage. If they would be responsible for changing the Cooperative Connection they would need all help they could get. Not to toot her own horn too much, but if Cter managed so much in her growth as a Monster Mage with three to help her, the ones to come after her would have enough help to make a completely new Cooperative Connection for the world should they need!

Once the room had digested what Sir Gerson had said, he motioned for Cter to continue with her new magic. "Unless there's something else you have in mind?"

She didn't.

"I do though," Kurant made it known with her sleeved index finger raised. Once she got the attention, she put it back inside her fold over her chest. "You did something with your sleeved hand before your crystal magic, Cter. Waved it in front of you face? Is that a ritual for your new magic? Sund doesn't have one, but is yours different in that it needs it?"

Cter spread her sleeved fingers over her face. "This?" Between her long and ring finger she saw Kurant nod. "This is mostly to show the Delta Rune and the end of the spiral," she explained while dragging a naked finger down the spiral. "My mother suggested it when I visited my human village. Has me looking powerful for an entrance."

"And you did this during your entrance at Fenkeep Castle as you told before?" Kry didn't really know what to think of it. "I...I guess it looks powerful when combined with a magical gust of wind." He looked down at his own sleeved hand, as did Sund and Kurant. None of the three did it though, however Cter hazarded a guess that they would do it alone in their quarters later.

"Anything else?" Sir Gerson asked the room again. "Then please, Cter."

For the third time.

With her arm straight in front of her, Cter focused on her new magic again. Ice magic, except not. As different an ice magic that she could muster and imagine. That was how she managed to figure it out. To imitate the different sensation she felt from Terri's ice magic, and then go further beyond in terms of it being different.

"This feels like..." Priestess Frioke said in thought with her ears bending as her deep brow danced. "Not ice magic, no? No, it would be wrong as ice magic."

Wrong as ice magic, but correct as crystal magic. Straight from her soul, with no monster memory needed. Honing on the difference that she felt as the starter, and continuing from there. She only had to use the Cooperative Connection she had with Bonny Sallus' soul on her sleeve as a catalyst, and not as a prompt for her magic. If she tried to use the Cooperative Connection like that, it wouldn't work. Like how Frioke said, it was wrong ice magic. Not different as the Royal Mage's, but wrong. It did not work as how human magic was taught, and could only be purely from her soul. It forced the magic to be of her own make.

Her spiraling line changed into a viscous liquid with texture that of crystal. It flowed calmly, like the slight movement to a still lake. "This is how I create it," Cter told while holding that stage of her magic. "It's similar to how my sleeve was when I woke up after receiving Bonny Sallus' magic. The same flow to it." She looked over to Kurant. "Remember?"

"Yes," Kurant agreed after a second's thinking. "What you have now is a bit-more textured and more...under control? Like there's a purpose to it now compared to none before when you woke up." She bent her head down to get a glimpse underneath Cter's arm. "I noticed some shards before."

"They form from my raised concentration." Cter pushed her soul to quickly form a pyramid-shaped crystal in her palm. Instantly, a shard of the same light-green color raised from her still lake like a building wave that froze solid as it reached its apex. It was of a wild and sharp nature, and could easily have been confused for a real one. "When I first tried it out my entire sleeve was covered in them all the way to my chest." Actually… "Maybe even from my chest?" It didn't puncture the silk on her Xoff robe, but it sure came close to. "It was a very exhaustive moment, so my memory of it is a bit hazy."

Sund leaned in to offer his sympathies. "I can attest to the first time being very draining." With a flick to his wrist he raised a barricade in his sleeved palm. "Once you use it more it'll be more and more like you always had it though, Cter."

It was nice of him.

"I've not yet tried to do anything permanent with my magic," noted Cter. "I need to figure out in what form I want it to be permanent first before I make any voyage into that."

Priestess Frioke was quiet for a few seconds before she slowly opened her eyes with a slow, accompanying nod. "Initially, your magic reminded me of the Royal Mage of Ice's, and that's no wonder since you seem to have used that difference as a basis and then made it more and more different." She really was keen on magic. She picked up on that immediately. "As it stands right now, from what I can feel, your own magic is equivalent to that of Sund's."

"Equivalent?" he perked with a thoughtful glance over to Cter and then back at Frioke. "That's not good." With a respectful point over to Cter, he continued. "Hers is supposed to be more than mine."

"The permanence?" guessed Kry with an eyebrow raising up behind his golden rim. "It has to be the permanence."

"Indeed," nodded Priestess Frioke. First to Kry, and then to Cter. "If you manage to make something permanent, Cter. If you manage to make a crystal that is real, with no magic to it whatsoever, then I will agree that you have succeeded in your task. You are close, Fourth Monster Mage, but you need to dare with your new magic."

Daring, ey?

No, Cter wasn't gonna do something daring. She would do something permanent, yes, but not something daring. Daring almost killed Idyll.

That wasn't to say that Cter wasn't gonna create something beyond that of the wildest imagination though. She would do it without being daring though.

"You can take as long as you need to," advised Priestess Frioke. "You do deserve to get used to be on solid ground before anything. If there is anything else that you feel is important to discuss with all the Royal Councilors present as you write your report for the journey, just let me or Sir Gerson know." She looked over to the turtle leaning on his interlocked fingers underneath his would-be nose. "Anything else you have in mind about Cter's Hjearta travels that you want to have all of us hear?"

Sir Gerson stood up, grabbing a game-piece off his board as he wandered around his desk and towards the office window. "A few things," he let echo against the glass that he peered towards Hjearta through. "Mostly pertaining to a certain Kallorean at Fenkeep Castle. A snowdrake serving at the castle as one of the Hjearta Royal Guards. He is a monster, but more than that, he is a Hjearta native. More to him, that is. His soul is dedicated to the humans, similarly to Huvett and Huvtvao's. However, while Huvett and Huvtvao was appointed to be human by King Asgore, Kallorean joined the guard at Fenkeep Castle out of his own soul." The piece Sir Gerson held behind his back he lifted up to look at. He angled it up and down, and side to side. "Out of his own heart, perhaps."

It was a human piece that he held, and not one of the monster pieces dotted around the map stretched over the game board.

"Always makes my job so difficult with all this free will going around," Sir Gerson let slip before he chuckled to himself. It had the Monster Mages trade glances to gauge how much they felt that he was joking about it. The results were...mixed. "In a few ways it is similar to the Royal Mage of Ice accidentally discovering, yet still being oblivious to, the truth of the Cooperative Connection. You see, Kallorean is the son of a family friend of mine. As payment for a favor I took him in as a child to make a Royal Guard out of him. Unfortunately, he couldn't stand the...qualms about the Jarasevo Royal Guards. He wanted more rigidity from his service, to feel that he had comrades that would trust him in the most dire of situations, and more importantly, that he could put just as much trust in his comrades."

With a gentle turn, Sir Gerson let his eyes saunter over to his office, and a few knocked-over pieces in the shape of monsters. "Something he couldn't get from his family no more." His otherwise-hardened expression softened into a sense of failure that weighed his head down. "When you were at Fenkeep Castle, Cter," Sir Gerson spoke from the bottom of his soul, "did you get a chance to meet him? If you did, how was he? How was Kallorean?"

Despite the emotional tone unfitting for Sir Gerson, he still was aware enough that he understood how different he sounded. He waited patiently for Cter to give her answer, with hands clasped behind his shell as if it was any other question posed by him. "I met Kallorean," Cter told, seeing Gerson light up instantly. "He was among the squad of Fenkeep guards that escorted me on the last leg through Fenkeep. His general I suspected to be related to the general that greeted you and Frioke during the trip to see Prince Soulay and confirm human magic."

"From her memories you explored?" wondered Kry on the cusp between impressed and disbelief. "You remember that?"

"Frioke's memories were very vivid about that Hjearta general. She–"

A loud cough from Frioke and a dark, ominous intent growing from her aura like her shadow trying to swallow the entire office informed Cter that it wasn't a point worth going into deeper details about.

So back to Kallorean she went. "I helped Kallorean connect further with his squad by sharing his magic with his comrades in arms so that he could connect with them as monsters for the briefest of moments. He tried to thank me enough for what I did, but to him he failed with that. If I were to put it poetically then I helped his squad become more as family to him." Cter glanced over to the monster pieces lying down. "Helped him regain the one that he lost."

"You're perceptive," Sir Gerson admitted without any loss to his pride. It was clear to Cter that this was something that laid close to his soul. "However, could I ask of you to halt your perceptiveness there, please?" There wasn't a single drop of animosity in his words, only pure and utter respect and gratefulness. "We all have lingers from the life we had before ours here in Jarasevo Castle."

Of course.

"And with that I have no more questions for you, Cter." Sir Gerson bowed his head towards the fourth Monster Mage. "I thank you for your service to monsterkind, and you may have the day off if you want."

Cter bowed her head back. "It was an honor to serve monsterkind, as I will do any other day as well."

"Before you go though," halted Gerson as Cter turned for the door. She almost knotted herself inside her mantle with her surprised turn. "I asked Barbeqa to have Idyll Fech cook a meal for you for your return. Speak with her later, would you?"

Idyll…

"I will, Sir Gerson."

It had been so long!

"And thank you."