"I was asked by Sir Gerson and Priestess Frioke to bring up here some–"

"I ask for your hand, please, Cter?"

The blue-scaled Monster Chef froze in an awkward balancing act with one foot hooked around the half-opened office door and her other up on its toes to turn on with the opening door. The creak from the sudden stop the door experienced flowed through Idyll's body and out to her hands holding a wide tray decorated with fine porcelain worthy of the Monster Royals and their Royal Councilors.

With the blinding bright from the office window, Idyll could only guess as to what it was she heard, exactly. She could feel the eyes and auras of those already in the office giving her the attention she had tried to so carefully skirt by as to not interrupt whatever was going on.

Out of respect when she was outside the door, but out of not wanting to take part of what sounded like King Asgore asking for Cter's hand once she got it opened. She must have heard wrong, surely.

And very, very hopefully.

As her eyes adjusted to the brightness in the office she found the scene she had heard without context to be without question to her.

Well, except the one big one.

"W...Why?" slipped from her mouth onto the tray in her hands heavy enough to shake it viciously. She blinked, each one audible to her Monster Mage friend sat with her left arm held out for the Monster King on his knee sensually peeling off the sleeve with a gentle pinch on the tip of Cter's ring finger.

Watching with perfect content was Queen Toriel, King Asgore' wife, who's hand he had already asked for many, many years ago. She was stood perfectly content watching, and hearing, the married Monster King ask for one of the Monster Mage's hand while he was taking off the magical sleeve to get to the hand so that he could…

A scared, tensed gasp sent an icy rush up the Monster Chef's spine and soul the moment she realized that she had walked in on something that she was too expendable to see without fear of being charged with treason. "I...I...I...I'm..." her mouth tried, but failed, because for each word that she could possibly say would be held against her.

Her widened eyes had her pupils smaller than a needle's eye due to the bright office, darting around the large sea of white like a stray peppercorn swirling around an empty platter. The expensive platters painted with vines of Golden Flowers weaved through purple tapestries began to vibrate loudly on the ornate metal tray. "Eh...heh...heh...heh." The Delta-Rune-shaped handles dug deep into the flour-sprinkled hands, prompting the Monster Chef to practically dive towards the nearest table where she sat down the metal tray with a loud rustle.

"Idyll?" wondered Cter, understandably confused. She chuckled at how absurdly tense her best friend seemed to be just delivering tea. "You don't have to–"

"I don't have to have heard anything, yes!" answered Idyll with a whipping bow that sent her bright hair and drops of thick sweat cascading through the air. She kept her bowed-over pose while backing away out the door. "I didn't see anything either, your Majesties!" Hearing one of the expensive cups roll around on the metal tray she threw a hasty clump of frozen magic that stuck the cup on the metal tray with a hazy circle of condensation around it. "I was never here!"

Before the door fully closed it flung wide open with one final, deep bow from Idyll.

"Enjoy your tea, your Majesties!"

The frozen magic holding the rolling cup shattered as the office door was closed post haste, leaving the office quite perplexed for a few, long seconds.

"Oh..." said Kurant after piecing it together first. Her look at the Monster King kneeling and gently taking off Cter's sleeve made the others realize too.

"Oh..." repeated Kry and Cter in the same tone.

"...Oh," said Queen Toriel in a slightly different tone that sucked away all the light in the room for one instantaneous moment.

"Then I'll just move here," reasoned King Asgore kingly with a few awkward shuffles so that his large back hid what he was doing from the office door should it be opened again for any reason. It brought Queen Toriel's unamused expression hovering above and behind Cter though, casting a deep, deep shadow over the Fourth Monster Mage and the Monster King.

It was good that Cter's soul wasn't physical otherwise she would have drowned from within with how much it was sweating underneath the imposing presence of Queen Toriel's folded arms and deep, deep shadow. Envy shared the silent panic as both Kurant and Kry took the opportunity and immense relief of not being in Queen Toriel's deep, deep shadow by walking over to the ornate metal tray and pouring themselves some tea.

"Don't leave me," Cter wanted to say, but dared not to. All she could do was weather it together with the Monster King who employed a more coarse and inelegant technique to pulling off Cter's sleeve off her left hand akin to taking off a wet sock stuck to the foot rather than an intricate piece of enchanted fabric used to cast some of the most powerful magic in the world.

When Cter's barricade-covered carvings came into view though, lighting up the deep, deep shadow with a rather-harshly white, magical glow, said shadow turned shallower as Toriel leaned closer with her arms unfolding from their strict and commanding fold.

"Oh, my dear one..." Queen Toriel managed to whisper before her hand came up over her mouth bent worryingly enough to tug down the corner of her eyes. "Cter..."

Rather than feeling relieved from the deep, deep shadow being lifted off her, Cter instead felt a wave of burden upon her. Yet another deeply worried exhale from someone new seeing the state her arm was in… She could tell that King Asgore felt similarly worried, but did not speak it.

The Monster Queen kneeled down next to Cter, opposite of the Monster King. Her hands moved as if she wanted to heal the arm, reaching over the magical carvings like a pair of heavy duvets slowly descending over a sick child to keep it comfortable.

Her hands stopped just before touching the white-glowing carvings with her fingers curling back in retreat. "Healing magic too?" the queen said to herself with a tilted brow that she moved closer to Cter's left arm. "Child, how much magic are you using?" With each new carving spiraling up Cter's arm, branching off into angular ridges like branches, the queen's brow sank deeper and deeper. "God..."

The Monster King's brow was equally sunk as the queen's was, but with a different angle to it. It was more...angry. Sympathetic towards how it visibly hurt Cter with her carvings being exposed, but with an anger at the unjust action which had befallen upon her.

He, the Monster King, was the protector of the monsters, and next to him sat one of his most precious monsters injured in such a way that he could do nothing about it. It troubled him, and that trouble he kept to himself as best as he could. All could see that which he could not keep to himself though. See and hear. "Forgive me, Cter," he asked with a hung head. "I've failed you."

"You've not failed me, my king," replied Cter to try and do...something. She was a bit taken aback by both Monster Royals kneeling around her, to be honest. "My arm, it's..." Her tongue denied the lie she wanted to speak. "I can keep it under control without much thought," she said instead. Instinctively she lifted her arm horizontally in front of her torso, away from the king's hands. Her half-removed sleeve hung limply with the inert Delta Rune symbol on the back of her sleeve's hand dangling like a flag without wind.

"It's bleeding, Cter," said Queen Toriel. "It should have healed on its own had it just been a scar, and you're keeping a layer of healing magic on it."

Cter knew that. She was the most aware of it. "It doesn't hurt." It stung when exposed as the air tripped into the carvings and perturbed the barricade magic, but that was remedied by her keeping her sleeve on. Both hiding the carvings and shielding them from weather. If Cter threw her exposed left arm hard enough it would probably have whistled, but she was not gonna test that anytime soon.

So yeah, it did not hurt normally. It was… It was manageable normally.

It only hurt when it was exposed.

It only hurt when others were looking at it.

"And the bleeding can't bleed more than it already does. It's stuck underneath the barricade magic with healing magic keeping it from getting worse. It's like...bloodletting, Sarbor has said." Not in those exact words though. "I've not been sick so maybe the healing magic is cleaning my blood? Maybe I should inform Dr. Fech about that? I can catch Idyll and ask her where her brother is if I hurry and–"

"Cter."

The stern, commanding voice of King Asgore had Cter realizing that she was trying to stand up from her chair. She deflated back into it with her shoulders hanging low. "I know," she sighed. "I'm trying." Her right hand clutched at where her sleeve's opening was to prevent King Asgore from exposing more of her left arm. "I was caught up in the moment at Noitaidarr Castle. I was so...furious. I wanted to end things right there and then. If the humans saw what the fusion had done to me then I thought they would rethink and retract their attack against us."

Cter's right hand began to slowly drag back the sleeve over her arm again, tugging at the fabric that King Asgore's still held in his hand. He loosened his grip, allowing Cter to cover up her carvings again. "Maybe then they'd understand, I reasoned. Worst part of it all is that they did understand." Her thumb bumped into the bend of her arm, and there she stopped.

"They understood what it was that had happened to themselves though, and not to me. The Field General realized what the fusion had done to him, his men, and to Sarbor. It was as if he thought that I had the same disease, but reacted worse to the symptoms."

Cter sighed. "I don't like saying that I have it worse than others, but..."

Because she lived in a castle, after all. She was the most powerful mage in the world. How could she have it worse than others when waking up in a gossamer bed each morning to the most beautiful view there ever was?

"While I appreciate that it is not me that comes across more humble than my title respects," began King Asgore as he gently lifted up Cter's left elbow so that her arm was straight again, allowing her to fully wear her sleeve again, "I do also have to say to you the same everyone has to say to me, Monster Mage Cter."

He found eye contact from underneath his strong brow white enough that the shadow it cast was nothing. "Remember that you have this title because you deserve it. You more than I because I was born into it. You came from a remote village deep in Hjearta and managed not only to graduate from Soul's School, but you also became one of the Monster Mages out of your own merits."

The Monster King's words were good and true, however Cter had heard them before. Perhaps not spoken the same in either words or voice, but still the same.

"There is a legend in Xoff," she said below her voice. "A legend about a human that forged a pair of wings from the feathers their late monster friend had given as gift to their village. With the wings, the human flew up high to retrieve the sunlight to be used at night. The feathers burned off as he picked from the sun like fruit from a tree, causing him to plummet down and set ablaze the village he tried to help with all the sunlight he spilled onto the houses."

A beat or two passed by with the Monster King still holding eye contact with Cter. "I have heard another version of that story," he said as he gave Cter back her arm. "Which I am sure that you have heard too. About how the human succeeded rather than failed in their task. The wings still burned, that part is the same, but because the human wanted for nothing but to fulfill their deceased friend's wish, their tenacity and spirit came through, and they spread the sunshine across the night sky to form the stars."

Not to insult, but to reinforce, King Asgore placed his hand in Cter's sleeved one to show that he meant her. "And another change in that story is that the human survived the fall. The village caught the human just before they hit the ground, saving them. Bruised, terrified, and devastated that the wings they'd crafted had resulted in the monster friend's feathers having been burnt away into dark ash falling down after them, the others in the village pointed out that the human had managed to fulfill the dead monster's wish."

King Asgore shrugged friendly with a sheepish smile as the silence after his story dragged on for a few awkward seconds.

"It is not a perfect analogy, I know," he admitted with a scratch on his nape. "However though, I believe that it fits more than it differs, don't you? It is important when you are at your lowest to see to those around you, for they will know of your accomplishments more than you can ever do yourself."

But what was it that Cter had accomplished, then? Getting her arm magically scarred and her fingers turned into a state between flesh and dust? Giving the humans the understanding to uncover the white lie of the Cooperative Connection?

Having to think of her magic so differently, away from the magical lake she used to conjure up in her mind to float just below to help feel at her soul? She already had to change how she thought of ice magic after the faithful night with Idyll. Before that it was the cold of her village during winter spent with Romrom, and then afterwards it was the cold she felt when Idyll and her had their friendship tensed to the breaking point.

And on top of that–

A soft, gentle touch on Cter's arm had her look down at King Asgore's hand once more on her sleeve. "The dust and ashes of the human's wings scarred the human, that much is true. I'm confident that flakes of still-burning feathers singed their body as they laid in the arms of the villagers that had caught them after embracing a monster characteristic so deeply. More confident am I in that the villagers plucked those flakes off the human. The human allowed the villagers to catch them, after all. They could just as fell have fallen down in a way that the villagers could not catch them, but chose not to."

He began to unravel the sleeve again.

"They were determined not to."

And Cter did not stop him.

"For they had trust in the villagers. They knew that the villagers would care for them in their darkest of hours."

He was right.

"An hour brighter due to the human."

"No further, please."

Not King Asgore unraveling Cter's sleeve, but him continuing the imperfect analogy. He'd pushed it as far as it could go before it became sappy and risked becoming insincere. Cter appreciated it, but she had her limit.

A limit that allowed her to allow the Monster King to expose her left arm fully to study with eyes close by rather than the far-away eyes she exposed her arm to at Noitaidarr Castle.

Thinking back on it had the carvings feeling restless, in a way, as King Asgore removed Cter's sleeve for the second time. It was something she would say that she'd never do before it happened, and it was the same for her after it happened too, yet she did it. In the moment she knew that she needed to, so she did.

Without a single second's thought at what would follow for her. Someone acting the martyr didn't really think about their own involvement in the aftermath of their martyr actions, after all.

"There is a slight beauty to it," surprised Queen Toriel. Cter had forgotten that she had the Monster Queen behind her, and flinched as the soft words skipped over her head. "In the way you have applied barricade and healing magic to it, I mean." The queen hovered the back of her hand over the length of one of the more thicker carvings acting as the stem of the spiraling pattern. "It flows like a river of snow above summer grass, almost."

"I do have to keep it flowing so that it is always fresh," explained Cter in response. "If I keep the healing and barricade magic still then it warms up from the blood and flesh." Which was visible through the white glow from the barricade magic and the green healing magic below it. Through both magics Cter's carved, exposed flesh was clearly visible, which apparently Queen Toriel ignored? "I've had Fang Shuey thin the sleeve a bit so that it doesn't sweat as much as it would be."

"Just don't be ashamed of it, Cter," Queen Toriel decided to make clear. It was a bit...blunt, but she said it with enough care in her voice that Cter could forgive the bluntness. "You've spoken a lot now about it, which I'm sure you've said before too, but it stands to repeat that you should not be ashamed of your left arm. It is proof that your soul stood strong against the fusion."

It… "It is?" Cter found it difficult to take the queen's words about that.

"It had to resort to carving it into your flesh because your soul refused it with such determination, did it not?" One of the Monster Queen's ears flopped down her shoulder as she tilted her head quizzically. "If it could get to your soul directly it would, but it could not, and had to resort to try and turn your human body into a monster's first in order to be able to."

Like a prized fish caught proudly, Queen Toriel lifted up Cter's arm with her two large, fuzzy, and white hands underneath.

"This," she said with a small shake and with stern eyes meeting Cter's. "This is a testament of the strengths of your soul. Not its weakness." She then lowered it back down to her husband's reach. "It is a reminder that tragedy will never win. No matter how deep and volatile the event, there is always a sunrise the day after, and the following, and the following. It was not fair for you to have these magical scars, of course not. However, you are strong enough to wear them, Cter. You are strong enough to think how to best shield your exposed flesh from becoming worse. You are strong enough to keep the healing magic and barricade magic even in your sleep."

Well...yes, that was true. That was more a necessity though, no? Something Cter had to otherwise she wouldn't, well, live.

"Your soul is strong enough to touch what the fusion did to you day in and day out."

That too, maybe…

"And it'll only become stronger, Cter. It has hurt you in ways unfathomable, but you've not faltered. You've learned. You've grown."

Cter looked down at her left arm. The carved lines pulsating calmly while moving up her arm did take less effort for her to maintain than it did the first day after she had gotten rid of the last trace of the fusion's soul from hers. Hell, the magic going up her arm was a necessary increase in complexity since the usual route for a human's magic was inside-out.

For it to flow up her arm Cter had to conjure the barricade and healing magic at her wrist and then...regret it, for a lack of a better word. Through her soul's will and aura she expelled magic, so taking it back in she needed to regress that will up the magical carvings acting as Cooperative Connection lines on her arm. Dissipating it at her shoulder or collar was easy once the magic got there.

"You're thinking, Cter," mentioned Kry with a smile on his lips which he hid behind his cup for a second of drinking. "Good."

It was small, what Kry said. Making a small, friendly joke at Cter's expense to descend into thinking, but it was his timing that had the Fourth Monster Mage exhaling a laugh out her nose. "You get your aura back and you use it to make light of my arm?" she replied with a wry smile. It felt good. "I didn't know you could get drunk on magic."

He shrugged, "I'll get used to it again soon," and served some tea to Queen Toriel standing up behind Cter.

It was nice to see Kry in good spirits despite what had happened to him. Perhaps it was time for Cter to do the same?

"You can remove my sleeve's hand now, King Asgore."

King Asgore, having waited patiently, nodded, and pinched loose one finger at a time. He slipped the long fabric off, and inspected the white fingers with his thumb resting inside Cter's palm. With a curious hum he noticed something. "This barricade magic does not move?"

"Doesn't need to since it's not...well..."

"I've read Dr. Fech report," informed King Asgore while reaching for Cter's sleeve again. "I know that it is not human." He rolled it up again and mounted in on the Monster Mage's hand, stretching it up over her white fingers and magical carvings up her arm. "Some tea?" he offered.

Cter nodded thankfully. "Yes, please." With a few clenches of her fist she made sure that her fingers were where they were supposed to be inside their specific homes in her sleeve.

A sleeve which she felt comfortable taking off to make sure her fingers fitted properly.

"Lemon, Cter? Milk? Sugar?"

King Asgore did not want to see her fingers, for he already knew about them.

"Lemon, please."

He just wanted for Cter to allow him to take her sleeve off.

"Here you go."

For her to have trust again.

"Thank you."

In her friends.

"Thank you so, so much."

And in herself.