Time is said to heal all wounds, but what if it was the passing of time that worsened the wounds?
The anticipation festering with each passing day that strolled by without any thought or care to the additional anxiety it left in its sunset. A sunset that followed the silence of the night allowing the anxious thoughts to run free and loud inside the heads of the Royal Councilors at Jarasevo Castle as they awaited the next day to bring news of what the truth of the Cooperative Connection had shaken loose in the human countries.
Days passed by, with the same anxious sunrise and anxious sunset reminding that there was trouble brewing behind the horizon bending down behind the mountain ranges and distant farm fields that followed the trajectory of the seasonal clouds.
Each morning and each evening sat the Fourth Monster Mage on the windowsill in her room with a cup of hot tea to calm either her anxious nerves asking if the morning was leading to the day where news would finally arrive, or to calm her anxious nerves asking why the day that preceded the sunset did not bring any news about the truth of the Cooperative Connection.
Each morning and each evening she sat there, waiting.
Waiting for weeks.
Waiting for months.
Waiting for years.
Weeks it took for the first correspondence from the Hjearta delegation having returned to Fenkeep Castle to reach Jarasevo Castle. It told of a nation shocked by the fusion and of a startled Soul's School that was forced to hold an emergency gathering to ease the students' worries. It was nothing to be afraid of, for it was but a horrible tragedy that could never happen again.
While it was the right decision to make, it did add to the gravity of the situation, unfortunately. The letters that followed from Professor Leraull to Sir Gerson along with a declaration that the general's king was in check by the knight moving to b6 spoke of a worry that the professor had.
A worry that the crucial early impression of the potential which human magic could bestow was under risk of being tainted by the tragedy at Clinic Hill and the subsequent trial. The professor's handwriting then turned harder, more quicker. Cter was able to feel a hidden anger within the strokes of the cursive lettering.
More so just by looking at it rather than any actual magic akin to the skeleton librarian though. The words were written with restrain despite what the sharp slashes of ink would imply by only looking. It was that which Cter had to use her interpretation of what the skeleton librarian's had for her magic. She could sense that the monster professor was holding back much, much more than he had written down like dark cuts upon the parchment meant for a distant game of chess.
A disappointment that he was not told the truth of the Cooperative Connection until after the trial. A disappointment in that throughout his life he had taught a lie to so many. A disappointment in himself that he could not shake away that he had done wrong throughout his entire career, and been lauded for it.
The Cooperative Connection had been more fundamental to Soul's School than the brickwork holding up the building. With such a drastic lurch of something that was more the foundation of the school than the actual foundation, how could it still be standing? How could a place of learning be standing if what was taught between its walls wasn't the truth? How could it be called a school if students entered to be taught, yet ended up being lied towards?
How could it be that throughout the generations of humans that Soul's School had helped refine their magical potential it had done so through a lie? Was it a testament to the strength of the institution or to the strength of the lie? That Professor Leraull could not tell.
A splotch of fainter dark stained the parchment next to that sentence.
"I look around this office of mine decorated with gifts that my late students sent me while they were alive along with letters filled with the brightest of hopes and dreams thanking me for giving them the possibility to make good on what their magical potential allowed them to," Professor Leraull continued with more and more dots surrounding his slashed writing.
"Letters that shine bright even though the humans that wrote them have become fallen down and returned their potential to the world. Humans that throughout their elongated lives praised me for teaching them how to use magic. I look around and am surrounded by these letters and expensive gifts that those human mages sent me and I am reminded of how much pride I bestowed upon myself for my work as head lecturer here in Soul's School. Pride that pushed me to understand the Cooperative Connection better in order to teach it better. When I first read about the trial and the truth that had been revealed about the Cooperative Connection I was drinking tea from my most treasured gift from one of my graduates."
Cter could see what it was that Professor Leraull meant vividly as she touched at the words with her sleeved finger and aura. In that sentence the restrain the professor had kept throughout his letter vanished, and his full emotions descended upon the parchment.
Through them, Cter saw the gift the professor spoke of. It was a porcelain cup, part of a set, handcrafted for the professor. Its ear was shaped differently to accommodate the tip of his tail rather than a finger, as was the handle for the porcelain kettle too and its lid. It was a gift from a human mage that had found employment at Fenkeep thanks to her education at Soul's School.
Employment that not only allowed her to provide for her family, but also to live a life she thought not even magic would make possible for her. The cup and kettle were painted with the landscape behind Soul's School. Its lake and forests painted with a paint that the graduate had enhanced with magic, allowing the painted trees to sway and the gentle waves to slowly traverse around the cup when warm tea was poured in from the accompanying kettle.
"I have not drunk from that cup ever since," the professor then wrote with a cursive form that descended in strength until it became but a line that trailed off the tear-dotted page. The ink on the other side had its texture less faded where the professor continued. "Yet I question each day why I can not drink from it. I question each day why it is that I do not want to drink from it."
Further down the ink changed its color once more. "For what I taught gave these humans something they could not have otherwise. I gave them an education in seeking to not only better themselves, but the world around them. I taught from the bottom of my soul, believing fully in that it was what the Cooperative Connection meant for this world. Each human mage that graduated has made the world a better place. Each one has gone to do great things that they would not be able to otherwise. And that is a lie?"
The same surging cold that had rushed through the monster professor Cter felt as she read the question. It was written so loosely and so faint that it was as if he'd dropped the quill he was writing with. Considering that he used magic to write, that might just as well have been the case.
"It's a lie that the world has become a better place? It's a lie that humans and monsters have done so many great things together that they could not have possibly done otherwise? All the letters I've received throughout my years as head lecturer from the humans have been written dishonestly? They have all lied to me that they have done great things and achieved goals beyond their own imaginations as retaliation for all the lies I've told them about the Cooperative Connection?"
Cter could sense the professor's magic tighten around the quill he wrote with.
"The magic on the set of painted Xoff porcelain is a lie too? Is that why I feel that I can not drink from it? Am I more disgusted by the fact that I taught the lie, or that my students perpetuate it? Does it come back to hurt my pride because I praised them for being clever and novel with the Cooperative Connection? Does it hurt my pride because they did not figure out that the Cooperative Connection was a lie? I am doubly in the wrong because I teach the lie that is the Cooperative Connection to humans that could not figure out that it was a lie, yet still I let them graduate into the world that they made worse by being beacons of the lie of the Cooperative Connection?"
With each parchment the ink used thickened in its color, indicating both that Sir Gerson was using human-made ink, and that he spent a significant width of time writing it. The hurried ends of each parchment always trailed off like he was writing it quicker than he was comfortable with. Perhaps too he had to write them in the slim pockets of time he was not busy piecing together what the trial at Noitaidarr castle had shattered.
"Lessons have been paused throughout the institution apart from humanities, but even those are on the brink on being paused as well. Soul's School is about prodding curiosity and to steer that curiosity into a better world for all of us. However, the curiosity raised by the true Cooperative Connection has planted a seed deep enough that we can not unearth it."
The sigh the monster professor let flow over the parchment was felt by the Fourth Monster Mage as she continued reading. She sighed too, in response.
"Much debate has raged whether or not we should acknowledge the truth of the Cooperative Connection to the students after the shock of the subject sank in with the faculty. It is still very much present within the faculty, for it is not just I that was shared this news. Many have floated around thinking about resigning as they would not be able to handle either the truth of the Cooperative Connection or that they have perpetuated its lie. My reaction has been shared with the faculty, but unfortunately that has not strengthened us."
Yet another sigh was present.
"It has only worsened as each lecturer has struggled in their own way with what the truth means to them. The same as magic is something we all learn our own way, so is learning that the true nature of the Cooperative Connection has been kept hidden from them. It hurts seeing my colleagues and friends question themselves so deeply. I assume that the same is for them seeing me too. I've done all I can to keep good spirits, but this drastic shift in the very foundation of our curriculum is impossible not to be shook by."
There was a returning resolve in the monster professor's writing. A strange, almost-invigorated second wind as he penned his thoughts as both the dean and the head lecturer worrying for his faculty's well being. Had Cter not known better it looked as if he was writing with a different hand. Through the faintly brown magic similar to the skeleton librarian's it was like the path she walked on suddenly changed from a dirt road worn with usage to a cobblestone road freshly maintained.
With this steeled writing, Professor Leraull went on detailing about a few of his closest friends in the faculty and their reaction to the truth of the Cooperative Connection. He told of each as reacting to the news differently, swaying between frantically trying to deduce on the blackboard within a thick cloud of chalk dust surrounding them to sitting on a bench at the promenade around the nearby lake for an entire day straight looking mournfully over the water.
He wrote about them as if the truth did not affect him in the slightest, as if each one had their own world shattered on its own rather than everyone having their collective world shattered.
It was a sign that Professor Leraull still was not giving up on Soul's School.
A sign that Sir Gerson had marked with a small Delta Rune in the corner of the parchment.
"Once we all could come together in agreement that the truth had happened, that we all were aware that it happened, and more importantly, that we all had accepted that it had happened, we could call for the debate of how we would react to it."
Weakness took hold of the monster professor's writing once more.
"This debate resulted in emotions that I am sure will be remembered by this building for the rest of time. Whatever those emotions were though I can not say, for they were all so jumbled and mixed up in each other that it became as a thick fog of helplessness and pleading that nothing was actually said for hours on end. There was screaming. There was crying. There was begging. There was anger. None knew where to direct either of their emotions though, including me. Was I angry at the humans for finding out the truth? Was I angry at Jarasevo for not sharing with me the truth? Was I angry at myself for not figuring it out? Was I angry at everyone else for not figuring it out?"
The few lines left on the parchment were stricken with long strokes of ink to cross out the professor's continuing questioning aimed at himself. On the other side of it he managed a more structural approach.
"Ultimately we all managed to remind ourselves that we had called the emergency meeting of the faculty because we all promised that we had accepted what the truth was and what it meant. Once we had cooler heads we managed to begin to structure out a plan as to our options when it came to the truth and if we should address it. Unanimously we voted to address it. Soul's School's was a place to learn about the world, even if the world had suddenly changed in such a way that not even the institution was prepared for it, and thus we had to make it clear to our students that we were in the know of it. We had a duty to inform them, and we had a duty to teach them of it as best as we could."
Clean paragraph-splits the monster professor could not afford in his haste.
"Priority was made to formulate it in such a way to minimize any curiosity from both the human and the monster students to test out the truth. We put weight on that it was dangerous and that it was connected to the tragedy at Clinic Hill. We urged the students to continue their studying, but not to the point where the Cooperative Connection was applicable. That reduced most of the studying available drastically, but what other choice did we have as the faculty? I wonder still to this day, and will continue to do so until I can make another announcement bringing the magical studied back. There are letters in a stack next to me from the students pleading me to let the lessons continue. If it reaches a certain height I will be forced to do so otherwise the students will begin teaching themselves, and that we do not want at this time. They are curious, and we need to keep that curiosity on the right path."
It was difficult for Cter to not read the last part as sinister.
And that was on top of Professor Leraull's writing becoming smaller and smaller to fit it all onto one side of the fifth parchment out of…many. The majority of the many were technical documents though. Transcriptions of the weighty decision made in such a short and equally weighty time. The griffon monster that flew in with it had to deliver it through the window in Sir Gerson's office due to the secrecy stamped onto the large, cumbersome package by Professor Leraull.
Cumbersome both due to the sheer volume of parchments and scrolls the monster professor had stuffed into the package, and that each one were as heavy as bricks with what was written on them. Increasingly defensive with decisions made to balance keeping the students' curiosities in balance.
"We believe to have found a way to both teach the Cooperative Connection in a way that does not bring attention to the truth of it while still acknowledging it whenever students inquire about it. It has been a struggle with the real threat of having to stop all teaching in the school these few, long, long weeks. I've barely managed to get some sleep, and all depend on me to be at my mind's sharpest to be able to handle this situation. We are lucky in that we have prioritized building a connection with the students so that it is easier for them to understand what the Cooperative Connection means and how they can easier open up their souls to feel the auras of others, for that has removed the majority of the friction between the faculty and the students when it comes to explaining our decisions and asking for their understanding."
If anything the truth of the Cooperative Connection did help in that regard. That it could be applied with negative emotions as well did help when delivering negative news, after all.
"Some of the students have been advising the faculty on how the zeitgeist has been among them. They seem to be aware of the gravity of the situation, which shows that the friendly spirit that Soul's School has prided itself to have fostered between humans and monsters still remain. They have expressed both the fear and the macabre curiosity that has been floating around like miasma. Together though they have managed to encourage talking about it rather than keeping quiet. The more they can air it out the easier their friends can help talk them out of it. I am eternally grateful for my students, and I pray that this thinking will be what decides the future following the trial at Noitaidarr."
At the corner of the last parchment, Professor Leraull wrote his last.
"Knight to b6 puts black's king in check."
The Spider Butcher, busy with slicing thin circles of sausage with one hand, cutting bread with another, and preparing vegetables with his rest, raised his head, blinking his five eyes asymmetrically at his Monster Mage customer stood with a deeply furrowed expression looking down at her arms folded over her chest. "'Scuse me?" wondered the monster with four brows raising to the height of the top-middle one. "Was that...for me?" came afterwards along with a small, unsure chuckle.
Cter looked up with her bent head, shaking it. "No, just me thinking. Sorry," she waved away with her sleeved hand. Her eyes moved up Castle Hill she had walked down earlier in the day to help clear her head. She had not needed it...ever before.
Most of the time she had felt burdened and needed some fresh air she had gone to the Royal Garden to be alone and relax, but it had been frequented more by King Asgore the weeks following the trial at Noitaidarr Castle. He would have loved the company, naturally, but all could see that he needed the time alone. A king's shoulders weighed the heaviest when things became unsure for his people, and unsure was what all could say about the future.
Hence Cter figured that perhaps some of her past was in store for her. To walk the streets of Jarasevo like she had done when she was a monster mage. Even though the cobble was the same when she was a monster mage, it felt different walking on it as a Monster Mage. Meeting the Spider Butcher did her good, especially when he offered to make her a sandwich with some new sausages he had imported from a quaint monster village south of Jarasevo. Orange-zest-and-ginger lamb sausage.
The morning's reading of the book-full of parchments had left her both hungry and with a better taste in her mouth as she read aloud to her Royal Councilor colleagues.
So yes, please, to the new sausages.
As the Spider Butcher continued on after worrying that he had done something wrong in the eyes of the Fourth Monster Mage, she came back to what had plagued her so much.
The parchments Professor Leraull had penned with such worry and dire that she had read magically told that the truth of the Cooperative Connection was spreading, and exactly the way that they all had feared in Sir Gerson's office. Things were rumbling over the horizon.
"Cut diagonally, Monster Mage?"
That she and her colleagues knew would be the case already though. "Yes. Thank you." That they all knew would happen, and what was they were going to plan for.
"Do please visit again, Monster Mage Cter. It is because of you that I managed to establish here."
One thing she could not fathom though, and which brought her back to thinking about Professor Leraull's writing over and over again.
"I'll keep that in mind, Spider Butcher."
How did the black king get checked by a knight on b6?
