"How long has he done that for now? Like...ten minutes or so?" Idyll's whispering as she served her Monster Mage friend was confused, to say the least. Her feather-covered eye peered past the tip of Cter's nose towards Sund sitting next to Cter with tongue outstretched for concentration while his hands touched and angled the white-dotted blue crystal in his hair. "He's explored putting it in every single different strand of his hair by now."

Sund really had. Cter knew that he had her reasons, as it slipped off his hair last time and scraped a slight wound on his neck on the way down. However, it had very much gone over into unnecessary vanity, as he had indeed explored every single strand he was to put his crystal brooch into. If he wanted to brag to Kry and Kurant about being the first one to wear it while being the last one to ask how it would look then he would have to make a choice.

Fluffbun, these Monster Mages.

Idyll was there to hand over Cter's morning cup of tea so that she could shake her head and roll her eyes while sighing over the rim of the cup before drinking. Idyll was a good friend in that regard, enough so that she felt she had earned some boasting which she intended to cash in on with a lean-in that had her hair falling down like an additional protective veil on top, and on side, of her hand against the side of her muzzle. "Doesn't it look less intricate than the one you made me yesterday?"

"Shhhhhh!" Cter hissed from inside her cup. ´"Not so loud." However though. "Do the feathers still look good inside it?"

Idyll nodded. "Just like my own." She leaned forwards with a tug forth at her collar to display. "You can still see it clearly between my–"

"Not in public, idiot," Cter was forced to deny with a push back. Her head and hair swayed from side to side to make sure no one caught a glimpse. "I trust you." Cter also already knew how Idyll's necklace looked like since she made it and all that. She didn't need to see it again, and especially not see it how Idyll was about to present it! "It's fine."

About to present her unassuming jewel at first glance, as unassuming as a jewel can be, but once shaken for a few seconds there emerged a late-autumn of feathers gently falling inside of it. Each one of the feathers inside the jewel were bound to the ones on the right side of her cheek, as per Idyll's request. Her plan was to give it to Sarbor once she finally met him to help him come to terms with how she looked. While wearing it around her neck she could let the feathery crystal be with her aura and magic to fill it and have it be more connected to the feathers it was supposed to portray.

It was with a pair of flicking eyes and bouncing eyebrows that Idyll diverted Cter's slightly concerned brow over to Sund who seemed to be coming to terms with how his crystal brooch sat in his hair. "Finally," she huffed rebelliously with the serving tray folded underneath her arm. "The most powerful mages in the world can't even put stuff in their hair."

Yes, yes, very funny, Idyll.

"Reminds me of how Asgore couldn't read road signs in his youth because of how sheltered he was in this here castle."

Very. Funny.

"But hey, at least he learned."

With her spoon wielded as a weapon, Cter raised her arm to swing towards the chef monster walking away with a snicker firmly present throughout her entire body. Before the Monster Mage could strike though to show her slight dismay at Idyll's comments, an orange flare-up demanded her attention from the corner of her eye. Cter's grip could only harden in defeat seeing Barbeqa standing in the serving window with flaring arms folded and an egg held threateningly in her blaze of her open palm.

The snicker took over Idyll, who roared her head back. "You still love me as a sister, Cter, the Fourth Monster Mage!" With her hair following like the bright trail of a comet across the night sky, Idyll spun her head around to flash her uneven smile at her Monster Mage sister. "Happy second anniversary for your own magic!"

Unfortunately, the pleading glance towards Barbeqa to be allowed to at least do something against the overtly smug radiating from Idyll's aura as she knew that she was untouchable was denied with a slow and deliberate shake from the fire monster's head. The egg was still in her blazing palm, and it was still ready to be burnt to a crisp.

Defeated, Cter returned to her served breakfast while the laughter from her best friend echoed among the decorated walls and large windows of the almost-empty dining hall. If she just kept looking on the blooming flowers outside shaking off the last drops of morning dew she would be able to tune away the mocking laughter on the verge of turning nasal as it drummed against her ears.

She knew that she didn't have any legs to stand on when it came to sympathy from Barbeqa and Idyll, as because it was Cter's second anniversary of discovering her own magic that there was a need for catering for the festivities down at Time's Square later in the day. Much of the food was served by local taverns, but of course there also had do be something from the castle as well. Otherwise it wouldn't be an anniversary of royal importance if there weren't any food of royal importance to go along. Same it was for the anniversary for Sund's own magic, naturally.

Including the sass from the Royal Chefs, even more naturally.

Shutting up and eating her breakfast was the best course of action for Cter lest she found herself facing an entire burning tray of burnt food the morning after. During her years at Jarasevo Castle she had seen that happen once, with Kry. His...misguided...attempt at smoothing-over the delivery scheduling for the Royal Kitchen earned him a morning with Barbeqa standing behind him with arms folded hard enough to risk melting together inside the raging inferno she had while staring with death flashing like an oily pan fire inside her eyes aimed at Kry's neck.

The Monster Mages were comrades through thick and thin.

But when it came to having to eat a fully scorched breakfast, Kry was on his own that day.

So while Idyll's mocking laughter had Cter grumbling because of the sheer lack of respect towards her importance, she in the end just had to swallow her pride as it tasted much better than breakfast burned to blackened crisps and then some.

"Does this look good, Cter?"

With the Fourth Monster Mage tensed from the memory of seeing the ever-steady Kry sweating and with soot-covered spoon quivering, Sund's sudden subject shift startled Cter. "What?" she hiccuped while she bounced mildly. "Your crystal?"

What else could he have meant?

"Yeah, it looks good," Cter managed to answer after a steadying cough into the bend of her arm. "Brings out the color of your hair." Her compliment didn't seem to hit as pleasantly as she meant it though, with Sund curling a slight pout at it.

"I guess there's no way I can put it without it bringing out my hair color," he said with a chuckled puff of air out his nose. "I thought that maybe if I angled it correctly it would like come around from being brought out to being taken in, somehow?" He dismissed it with another puff and a throw of his hand up in the air.

"Should just worry about it siting nice and comfortable," advised Cter in return. She angled her own brooch up to show some her scalp underneath. Not much, just enough for him to understand what he meant, and not a moment longer. "You want it where your hair is a bit thicker so that it doesn't scrape against your skin. Doesn't need to be perfect in its placement either, but just good enough that it sorta...brings forth, or assumes the idea that it is placed with a sophisticated meaning and thought behind it." She was just saying stuff without thinking. "And yours does just that, Sund."

"It's fine?" he asked to confirm.

"It's fine," Cter confirmed. "Don't worry about it. The more you do the more clouded your crystal becomes."

"Oh?"

The way Sund shone up had Cter a bit taken back. She was only joking about his crystal becoming more clouded as his mind did, and with him becoming as bright as he did hearing that, it kinda had her feeling a bit rude about it. "Actually..." Cter said through teeth clenched as she breathed through them. "I...kinda was joking about that."

"Oh."

Yeah…

"I mean, it would've been interesting had you done it," said Sund with a finger tapping at his blue crystal sat good enough in his hair. "Would've been a bit too revealing though, I think?" He shrugged innocently. "It's better to keep my thoughts inside my head rather than outside of them."

Didn't seem to be any disappointed tone in his voice or aura, which had Cter relieved.

"Speaking of that though," Sund added after wiping his mouth with a handkerchief sporting the Delta Rune on it. "About thoughts kept inside. If you wouldn't mind, can I ask you about something I've never been able to ask the others about?" Before the question could germinate without it being explicitly clear what Sund meant, he added something real quick. "About using your own magic, that is." With rigid and methodical movements of his right, sleeved hand, Sund summoned a small room of barricade magic around him and Cter. "Just so that we're clear."

Clear and alone.

"It was...eh...supposed to be so that we could have some privacy about talking about our own magic," Sund explained to Cter looking around at the white magic with a slightly perturbed brow. His finger danced around the four walls before finally shrugging. "Sorry if it came on a bit too pushy. If you don't want to talk about it's fine."

"I do wanna talk about it," Cter clarified after a few seconds of looking around. "Although maybe next time..." The implication was a bit too strong for the situation to be anything else but locking in the other conversation partner, literally mostly. "Just don't do it with anyone else. If there were others that knew their own magic, that is."

"Yeah, thanks."

With that out of the way, Cter turned her chair to face Sund directly, with her saucer and cup held ready for a long conversation. "What's swirling in your soul, Sund?"

"Just, how you feel with it?" he answered while mirroring Cter with his chair and tea. His posture was a bit more leaning forwards than hers was. "Two years at Soul's School got us from not knowing anything at all about magic to the first spell we managed to cast." Sund took a slight sip before deciding otherwise. "At least, that it was for me. How long did it take for you?" After that he could sip in earnest.

"One and a half years for my generation." There was an exception to that rule though. "Well, the generation minus me. For me it was two years. I had a course or two that I needed to redo."

With his half-empty cup, Sund indicated towards the Delta Rune on Cter's robe. "Seems that extra half year did you good though."

"Guess so," said Cter while looking down at the indicated sigil. "Although it did was a bit...lonely being the only one among my course mates to not be able to do magic. They were all encouraging to me though, which is why I didn't just drop it right there and then."

A slight-gray color took its roots behind Cter, which had Sund clearing his throat and readjusting himself in his chair. "I don't mean to be rude, again, but I only mentioned Soul's School as an example. Before we drift a bit too much into that tangent, please?"

Yeah, that was probably a good idea. "How I feel about my magic now compared to how I felt about my magic two years ago?" she posed as the theme for Sund to confirm.

"Yes. I'd like your angle of it first so that I can muse a bit about it. I've noticed some things that you've done differently than I have, in particular how your aura feels compared to mine when we do our own magic. It's hard to make a good study with just two samples, but if those two samples discuss among themselves then perhaps?" His next shrug Sund held for a long moment before letting it drop. "Your demonstrations with the others have been informative and a good display of your progress, of course. However, like with all magic, context to the produced magic matters, and that's why I want to have this soul-to-soul with you. Your second anniversary seemed like a good time to ask, and for the reason why I didn't ask before..." Sund breathed in to try and figure out a good metaphor. "Well you wouldn't ask someone who hasn't read for very long to dive into the most-literary-complex works there are."

"A Soul's Search?" Cter replied in an attempt to ease Sund's tensed shoulders.

Her attempt was successful, "Hey, it's actually a good book," and Sund managed to breathe out a bit. "It's...indulgent...at times, but what it sets out to do with its wholesome escapism is well developed and absorbing at times." He showed no signs of being embarrassed as he praised the book with nothing but complete conviction shimmering in his soul. It almost colored the barricade walls, he spoke so easily about it. "Even Kry has read it."

He…

"He has?"

"No," Sund immediately admitted, "but fluffbun if it wouldn't be great if he had. I mean, if he has, he's keeping it very well hidden."

What was that about tangents again? Going down the wrong path?

"Yes, yes, sorry." Sund motioned with an open palm over to Cter. "Podium is yours now."

While it was hers, she didn't really know what to say immediately. How had her crystal magic changed in the span of the two years she had used it? "So..." she began with nowhere to go. "The simplest answer is that I feel that I've gotten more used to it, I guess." Was that good enough? If Cter was the one asking it wouldn't have been good enough. It was difficult to formulate into words though. She could have tried to project it through her aura, but that would have been too abstract to communicate through her aura. Changes in mood and such was easy enough to read, and while one could argue that her getting used to her crystal magic meant a change in her mood in relation to that, it wasn't an argument that Cter had made, so to speak. Yes, it was true, but no, Cter didn't feel it that way. Besides, formulating it into words would involve both her human and monster side in the process.

Still though…

"I've gotten more used to it," Cter repeated with a sigh that spelled disappointment in herself. "That's all I can say right now about it. Could...could I ask you how you'd describe it, Sund? Just as a start?"

Sund folded his arms with a respectful shake to his head. "Sorry, but this has to be from you. Only from you." He looked different in that moment. Still Sund, but another side of him. The side that was Monster Mage, and not just monster. He was intelligent, but he never did make a show of it. Not because he didn't enjoy being intelligent, but because he prioritized talking with others with as little friction as possible. With Cter though he had to embody his magic though, and put up a barricade that she had to spend the effort overcoming. To find and be encouraging of new possibilities was his mission as the Third Monster Mage, and his barricade magic was there to make him aware when ones were being built between monsters and humans.

Putting one up before another wasn't always a means to hinder.

But a means to encourage.

"What and how is the difference with your crystal magic two years ago compared to today, Cter?"

She held out her hand. "Give me." She did not have to say anything more for Sund to understand. He placed his blue crystal brooch inside her hand. Its older sibling, the green brooch in Cter's hair, joined it shortly after. With the two in both her hands, she began to study close. Close with her sight, her hearing, her smell, her soul, her everything. What made the two different?

Or perhaps, what made them similar? What had them similar, and were they fully similar?

At the onset, yes. Apart from the color, texture, and shape, which were all vestigial characteristics, the crystals were the same. They felt the same to Cter as her magical creations. In her soul they weighed the same. "These two feel like they could've been made on the same day. Whichever day. Any day during these last two years I could have made these two and they would have come out just the same."

"And how do you feel about that, Cter?"

"Like..." How did she? How did she feel about it? "Like it's not a bad thing?" Cter surprised herself with that answer. That didn't sound like something that would be a positive. Didn't that mean that she hadn't made any progress at all? "It's not a bad thing that the first and last crystal magic I've made feels the same?" Her own question echoed slightly against the walls of barricade magic. "It took me but like ten or so days for me to be able to be completely absent while weaving my braids with stasis magic, but during two years time I have not made any steps forward when it comes to my crystal magic?" Her naked fingers grasped around the more soft shapes of Sund's blue crystal brooch. "I mean, I know I managed this one much easier, but it should feel more looser and less weighty, shouldn't it then?"

Sund's arms remained folded, as did his neutral expression that did not judge, but only did observe his Monster Mage colleague. It was what he had wanted, for Cter to ask herself the questions rather than him doing it.

It had to come from Cter's soul!

Even if it was nothing, and even if it was just her saying that it had just become easier then that was enough. It was still progress, and plenty still. She did not need to have a revelation that changed her magic forever! That she had already had in discovering her crystal magic. What she needed though was to get an awareness of how her magic had developed. To take stock in where she had been and where she had come.

That was what Sund needed from Cter for him to agree with Kurant and Kry about her having developed her crystal magic to a point where he would be comfortable with her moving on to the next step in her journey as a Monster Mage.

If she did have a revelation that changed her magic forever again then fair enough. That worked too in Sund's book. Maybe she would figure out how to have her crystal magic be in a permanent state other than solid? Sund hadn't managed to manifest his barricade magic in any other form than solid, so if Cter, who figured out her own magic way earlier in her career than Sund did, did manage to have her magic exist in another state, then he wouldn't have any qualms about being a hypocrite and asking her how she did manage that and if she could teach Sund. With her particular brand of magic, perhaps she would be able to just transfer what she had learned wholly?

Perhaps after changing Bonny Sallus magic she would be tasked to change a mage's magic? Perhaps even a Monster Mage's magic? Kurant would surely have liked that. However, if she would have liked that enough to risk her knee again was another story.

A story Sund did not know, and a story that was way in the distance. Too far in the distance for him to in good faith give it an honest chance with not nearly enough to go on. Besides, he had to focus on Cter figuring out her magic.

Which she…

"Oh, you're done?"

Sund returned to reality from his thoughts to Cter displaying the two crystal brooches in her hands like two candles about to burn their last and burn her hands.

"Yeah I am," she said while handing back Sund's crystal brooch for him to put back in his hair. She did not have a lot of faith in him being able to take it properly what with him coming back from thinking even deeper than she did. "It has just gotten easier," Cter was a bit ashamed to tell. It was the truth though, and she felt that down to her very soul. First time she had ever felt her soul do a metaphorical shrug to her pleading with it to tell her everything.

She knew that it could be sassy, as it was when it took the shape of Huvett and Huvtvao and Terri Fyed in her carriage traveling back from Fenkeep Castle, but that it could metaphorically shrug too when pressed for a more detailed answer than it could give, well that was something else too? "I have gotten more used to my crystal magic, and can do it with more complexity in a shorter time span. Still requires me to be mentally conscious about it though, albeit a bit less mentally conscious than before. I will reach a point where it'll be just like monster magic, but I can't tell you when that will be exactly."

"And that is totally and utterly fine by me," replied Sund with a slow and deep bow to his head. His folded arms separated widely, as if to congratulate. "As long as it comes from your soul then that is progress in my book. I had the exact same progression with my own magic as you did after two years. For me it took five years until I found a different angle to what my barricade magic could do, as in blocking magic from passing through it and completely sealing off what I surround with it. Five years it took for me, so I did hazard that it would take two for you. Perhaps it will be three instead, who knows?"

"Your barricade couldn't block magic from the beginning?" That was a surprise to Cter. To her it seemed like the one reason that it was Sund's magic in that it could block magic. That it couldn't to begin with...that meant that he had to discover it. "Really?" The prospect had her excited, as it meant that she had more to explore with her own magic! Maybe she would figure out another way that her changing magic could manifest itself as? The crystal magic was just from making her ice magic different, so how would it be if she changed fire magic? Stasis magic?

"That is what I wanted you to realize," snickered Sund friendly while bouncing his index finger at Cter. "I can see it on your face and feel it in your aura that you're thinking of ways to experiment with it. That's why I've told Priestess Frioke and the others to keep that development of mine a secret from you. You still have some ways to go with your crystal magic though, so I would suggest sticking with that until you have a revelation regarding it. Again, it has to come from you, and you alone."

So then when Cter applied her changing magic to another school it would be immediately upgraded, in a way?

Oh that was enticing indeed!

"Great!" cheered Sund with a loud clap that had his barricade magic dissipating, revealing Kry and Kurant sitting on the other side eating their breakfast. They looked up to the fading barricade magic with curiosity. "Cter's good to go in my book," Sund informed the two eating Monster Mages, who both nodded to show that they understood.

Good to go?

With an open hand motioning towards Cter's sleeve, Sund cleared his throat and toned it down a few octaves to sound more important. "It's time for you to fulfill your first mission as a Monster Mage, Cter." A few too many clears of his throat, which had him coughing from straining his voice, earning him a head shake from Kry.

"You are to travel to Clinic Hill and change Bonny Sallus' magic," continued Kry in Sund's coughing state. "Sund will accompany you, now that you have his blessing in terms of being in control of your own magic enough to apply it as is your mission. You two will departure the first next month."

That was...three weeks from Cter's second anniversary. Plenty of time to have Cter both be worried and then be unworried about the trip.

Nice.

"Today, however," Kurant intersected while fishing behind her neck and bringing forth her braid. "Today we celebrate your magic though, of course." She pointed to the third weave from the bottom. "Could I have my brooch fit here, please?"

That she could. "Sure, that's gonna look good on you."

"Thank you."

"Onthetopofmyfringeforme," said Kry very fast over his spoonful of scrambled eggs so that his request was heard, but just enough to be heard, and not thought of any further. "Please, Cter?" That at least was slow enough to have the emotion in what he said be clearly heard.

She could do that as well. "Of course."

"Thank you."

Poor Sund didn't get to brag about him having gotten his crystal brooch first though, as his coughing reached deeper than anything he had ever had before. "Jeez," he managed to utter with a dumbfounded expression.

"How many throats do I have to be swallowing wrongly into? Dang."