"Okay..."
The blue hands with a pair of extra fingers magically sewn onto the outer ends came together to try and help calm down.
"Okay!"
But it only worsened the strange situation.
"It really feels that weird?" Cter asked with concern that only came across once she hid her mouth behind her hand. "It's just magic, isn't it?"
"It's your magic," Idyll said as if reminding. "It feels like the real thing."
"Wasn't that–"
"Yes it was what I thought I wanted!" Idyll looked with a half-opened expression at her hands, her agape mouth curling into more and more of a frown the closer she eased her magical fingers together. Her inhale through her uneven teeth became like a whistle when her teal-glowing pinky fingers were just about to touch together. There was focus in the Monster Chef's eyes more than Cter had ever seen.
So like a good friend she reached for the almost-together magical fingers in order to help squeeze them together.
"Don't!"
But was met with a low growl that was summoned from the darkest depths within Idyll.
"I'm doing this on my terms."
Her tongue poked out between her uneven rows of teeth, moving to the edge of her mouth to aide in the last minuscule distance...between...her...new…
"Okay," exhaled Idyll with her eyes closed as she took in the feeling of sensitive touch outside of where her hands should be without outside magic added to them. Like a struck anvil she shivered, weathering the echo of the strange sensation with deep, slow breaths. "Okay..."
She angled her pinky tips up, letting more and more of the length of her magical appendages touch. Each conjured knuckle brought with it another wave of her face clenching up with a sharp inhale, until her magical pinky fingers touched fully. Her other eight fingers came together as well like a prayer which she held throughout a few more slow breaths. "Alright."
Cter looked at one of her own pinky finger, wondering internally what the whole fuss was about, really. Although for it to be fair it would be equivalent had she a conjured sixth finger on her hand. Still though, Idyll was making a mountain out of a pebble with how much she had squirmed around like her hands were on fire. Surely it wasn't as bad as she made it out to be?
"Ooohhh..."
But it was.
"Ooohhh noooo..."
The uneven teeth behind the uncomfortable frown turned to a smile as Idyll heard her friend groan in discomfort the exact same that she had done. "See?" she said with an accusatory tone while catching the glimpse of a sixth pair of magical fingers disappearing from her friend's hands. Cter's finger were curled with slight disgust as she shook away the feeling as best as she could. "Told you it was different!"
Cter was used to be feeling outside her body with how her human magic worked, and especially with how she changed or borrowed magic from other monsters, but another magical finger as sensitive as one made from flesh?
"That was really, really bad."
Gushing satisfaction filled Idyll's aura, and she exploded into a hearty laughter. "I told you so!" she told with a hoot, clapping her hands together with delight.
Which brought down the delight a couple of notches.
"Wasn't ready for that," was forced out her clamped lips which she gradually managed to open up to breathe out the uncomfortable from her clap. "Was. Not. Ready. At. All."
She didn't really need to be, actually. All she had to do was to show how Rasliela held her cutlery. There was no spoon or similar on the ornate tray resting on top of Cter's simple crystal table, so the Monster Mage had to figure out something else. Her first thought came to the bush next to her which she reached into for a couple of sticks.
A decision that had Idyll forgetting about her magical fingers for a couple of perplexed seconds. "A flower?" she asked. "Or did you see a squirrel?"
"Sticks instead of cutlery," the Monster Mage explained after finding a few small branches that looked easy enough to bend loose. "For you to show how Rasliela held her fork and knife differently?"
The answer did not really sit well with Idyll. "Not magic?" she and her eyebrows perked. "Crystal cutlery?" The way she shrugged with her baffled hands made it look like she had been ten-fingered her entire life. "Why sticks?"
Cter's explanation wasn't the best. "Because having one magic interacting with another type of magic adds another set of variables." Technically it was correct, but in that case it was more an explanation to excuse rather than an explanation to...well...explain.
Idyll didn't buy it though. "Like me mixing together fire and ice magic?" she challenged with an eyebrow raised to challenge as well.
"You know full well what I mean," groaned Cter while ungracefully dropping the two sticks she had bent off the bush onto the metal surface of the tray. "Two different coins rather than two sides of the same one like your ice and fire is."
She sawed off the frayed bristles of the bent-off twigs with a crystal saw on her fingers, blowing the scraps away before handing the twigs over to Idyll. "Now, what was it you noticed, please?" She motioned for Idyll to pick the sticks up. "Can show me the way she held the knife first?"
It sure was a pair of sticks that Idyll was handed from her friend. A pair of sticks that were supposed to be cutlery. "How would anyone eat anything with just a pair of sticks?" she grumbled, unsatisfied with the quality of the props she had been given to present her theater production of how Rasliela held her silver cutlery. "Oh well."
With untrained movements, Idyll struggled to position her conjured pinky fingers where she wanted them to be, swaying around the stick like a bumblebee inspecting a flower. "It was something like..." the Monster Chef said from the back of her tongue as the front of it was once more angled out the side of her mouth to help with her concentration. "Something like this for the knife?"
To Cter that was quite normal. Nothing to do with the pinky finger either. She nodded in acknowledgment. "And the fork?"
"Yeah," said Idyll while struggling even more to position her magical pinky finger on the stick that was supposed to be the fork. "Give me a second," she underestimated by a factor of ten before getting the grip the way she remembered seeing. "Alright, there."
The pinky finger was held at a sophisticated angle, very similar to how King Asgore and Queen Toriel would hold their forks. Still though, the stick fork Idyll held in her left hand wasn't held as noticeable as Cter would have thought it would.
"You don't look that convinced," came a tired comment from Idyll towards her friend. She looked at how she held the stick with her magical pinky finger. "It's very close to how Rasliela did it, I promise." A dash of pride was present in her voice. "I mean, I guess it's on the wrong hand, but that wouldn't really make that much a diff–"
"Wrong hand?" blurted Cter out with eyes opened as wide as can be. "But that means that… That she held her fork with her right hand?"
Idyll's neck craned back. "...Yes," she said with a hesitant nod before pointing her stick cutlery together. "You gestured for me to begin with the knife on the right stick so I did."
Yes.
"Wait, no."
Or did she?
Just–
"Whatever," the Monster Mage coughed out with a quick shake to her head. "But Rasliela held her fork like you're doing now with her right hand, yes?" She was serious with her question. It was very important. Important enough that she held her eyes hard on Idyll's. "Fork in right hand or left hand?"
"Right hand," answered Idyll with utmost confidence. "The fork was in her right hand."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
"Okay."
So she was eating with her sleeved hand then. Held her fork in her hand with her grandfather's influence. A Boss Monster grandfather who's granddaughter kept her pinky finger the same way as King Asgore and Queen Toriel.
But wait…
"You didn't notice her sleeve?" posed Cter with a slight tug to her brow. Surely Idyll must have. "Wait, you didn't know..."
The Monster Chef tugged her brow right back at her friend. "Knew about what? Her sleeve?" She shrugged. "Rasliela wasn't wearing hers during the dinner."
She…
"What!"
Idyll almost stumbled back into a thorny bush behind her as she startled a large step away from her friend's bulging eyes and overly-surprised voice. "She wasn't wearing her sleeve," the Monster Chef repeated carefully as to not prompt another loud yell. "Her right arm was paler than her left one because of that."
Cter looked down in thought, slowly shaking her head as one began to grow within her. "No..." She grabbed at her left arm with a distant look to her eyes. "No, that's not why."
"That's not why?" Idyll repeated with an initial confusion to her blinks that slowed down as the same, terrible thought filled her head as well. "No, you can't mean..."
"Did you see her arm?" Cter's eyes were still distant, narrowing slightly as she juggled internally what it meant. "Did you see her arm or was only her hand visible?"
After forcefully thinking back hard enough to have her grab at her head without any thought given to her fifth and tenth finger at all, Idyll shook her head without as the confidence as she would have wanted. "No, not her entire arm. I only saw her hand and a bit below her wrist. It was pale, I remember though. Pale like the white of the tablecloth we used."
"Pale like Kurant or pale like–"
"Like yours!" Idyll interrupted before Cter could take off her sleeve again with eyes shut hard and head turned away. "Pale like your arm. It was..." Even though she looked away it still began to settle in with her. "It was...as pale as yours..." Settled in like a bad smell.
Cter did not notice as her eyes were on a horizon beyond Idyll. Beyond the marble walls of Jarasevo Castle and beyond the curve down in the far distant. "Why?" she asked quietly. "And how?" How did she do it? When did she do it? When did she let her grandfather's memories fasten physically on her flesh? Was it after Cter had shown her left arm at the Noitaidarr Trial? Was it her using the truth of the Cooperative Connection?
Was it before the trial?
If so, then did Rasliela already know about the potential of the Fusion? And for how long then? For how long did she know?
"Was it..."
All the way back when her grandfather gave her his memories? Was she a Fusion?
"And does that mean..."
That Cter and Idyll almost fused back when…
"Cter?" asked the Monster Chef with concern over her friend's conflicted eyes and expression slowly rising from the bent-down head. "Does this mean something?" She hadn't noticed yet that her fifth and tenth's fingers had dissipated from her hands. "Did I see something...wrong?"
Wrong?
"No," Cter replied immediately, almost as if it was her soul that had her say it to calm the growing worry over Idyll like a dense, dark cloud. "No, you didn't see something wrong. It's good that you did." Even though it was true it still felt and sounded like a lie when Cter said it. "It'll help that we know about that. I promise."
"You promise?" Idyll wanted to reassure. "You promise I didn't see something wrong?"
Cter nodded. "You didn't see anything wrong. I promise that you didn't, Idyll." She put her five-fingered hand over Idyll's four-fingered hand, wafting away the fading pinky magic. "It might mean a lot though, that's why I'm a bit shaken. I'll have to talk with the others about it before I go make conclusions on my own though."
"You're squeezing my hand, Cter. You're squeezing it hard."
She was, wasn't she?
"Singe my soul," she sighed.
"And we haven't even begun talking about Sarbor..." Idyll sighed as well.
Oh yeah…that…
Cter's hand slipped off Idyll's. "That we haven't, no," she commented with a tired raspberry. Equally tired she grabbed the handles of the ornate metal tray, lifting it up from her crumbling crystal table that was whisked away in dusty ribbons around Cter and Idyll as it dissipated out of existence with iridescent shimmers. "Get it over with?" she proposed with a nod down the stone-stepped path.
Idyll didn't look overly thrilled to get up it so that she could get over with, sighing down where Idyll had nodded towards. "I suppose..." she agreed, eventually, with an uncomfortable scratch at her cheek. "Maybe we could talk about him after a cup of tea? My nerves are a bit..." Her four-fingered hand quivered like a leaf from a nearby aspen tree. A small smile broke her tired frown when she saw that her magical finger had disappeared. "Seems like I won't be able to show how Rasliela drank her tea."
Another crystal table began to form as Cter inhaled deeply through her nose, "Did she–" but managed only so far as to gain a faint outline to it as Idyll shook her head hard and apologetic.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have made that jest!"
The deep inhale flowed out through the Monster Mage's slightly tensed mouth. "Just joking," she said, mostly to herself. "You were just joking."
"Sorry," Idyll said again with her head and long hair pointing down at the gravel she was making a hole in with one of her feet. "I thought it..." She swallowed, and pushed out a disappointed exhale. "Let's just go." With her heel she filled in the hole in the gravel she had begun digging wider. "I need that tea."
Idyll managed a few steps before Cter could catch up gently as to not spill the kettle on the stasis-carried tray. Once at her friend's side, the two did not say anything. They were both too much on edge for the moment and had to calm themselves down a few notches before they could do anything else.
Through the lush, late-summer blooming the two walked through as if in the middle of Jarasevo and hurrying through the afternoon denseness of the cobblestone roads in order to get home and forget about the day's work. There was no stopping to smell either the roses or the tulips for the two. Both had the nearest bench in sight, even though neither could actually see it.
The stone-stepped path danced through the Royal Garden like a river, bending and turning each chance it got to accommodate larger trees and bushes. For walking through the Royal Garden on a sleepy afternoon to take in the smells and colors, the stone-stepped path was perfect. Each turn and bend provided another canvas of delightful greenery dotted with varied colors.
For hurrying to find a bench so that one could sit down and have some tea to push away the weight on one's shoulder from having potentially witnessed and been told a witness account of a pretender to a human throne having magic without her sleeve?
"Maybe we should just have the tea here?"
The worst path there was.
"It's just around another bend."
Why couldn't it just be straight?
"You sure?"
Both the road, and also everything else in the world?
"I'm sure."
Why did there have to be revelations before revelations?
"Oh, you're right."
And not just a high-ranking member of the Xoff court having a different grip on her cutlery due to her age?
"Biscuit or pastry?"
Hopefully the tea would help.
"Pastry."
Please, please, please let the tea help!
"Is it fine if I close my eyes for a few moments?"
Cter nodded while she poured Idyll a cup first. "I might too, I feel." Even though it would surely have her thinking which was the least of what she wanted at the time. "Maybe I'll open my eyes and we'll just be sitting here because it is our lunch break." She sank back into the metal pattern on the backrest, letting her weight melt off her and into the bench, closing her eyes while drinking some of her tea, setting it down without opening them again. "Would be nice."
"Lunch break," Idyll caught on with a huff out her nostrils. "Maybe for you," she said with an audible smirk that was drowned out by a muffled bite of a soft cinnamon roll. A few, slow chews went by along with a few long breaths. "Even less for me this last week."
Cter nodded with close-eyed empathy. "What with the necessity of having woshuas in the kitchen to help with the dishes?" As to not miss her mouth with her cup while not opening her eyes, Cter caressed her cup with some of her aura so that she could use both touch and magic to know exactly where her cup was in relation to her mouth.
"You spilled some tea, Cter."
Dammit.
As if awoken two hours before she usually got up in the morning, Cter blinked her eyes opened with great effort. She looked down her robe, finding a few drops of darkened fabric which she rubbed at with a pair of tongue-wettened fingers. "It's funny, heh," she heard her friend sigh out over her unspilled tea. "Barbeqa joked about this earlier this morning."
That it wasn't spilled was a slight surprise with how much Idyll's hands were quivering. Had Cter not known better she would have guessed that Idyll was in need of another pair of fingers to hold the tea cup more steadily.
"The only way either of us were gonna get away from cleaning up in the kitchen after this last week would be if the king or queen personally requested our presence."
Having gotten out of cleaning a frying pan only to end up in a metaphorical frying pan wasn't really a step straight up. If anything it was a step to the side at the best. With Idyll already being so weighted down before she had even begun to talk about her older brother the step was nothing but a step down for her.
"Maybe she knew?"
Knew about Rasliela's arm?
"Maybe she said it to ease my worries?"
No, Barbeqa was too busy serving the rest of the table to notice such a small detail table-lengths away.
"I don't know..."
Neither did Cter, unfortunately. She knew a lot, but this she didn't. "I'm here for whatever you want to say, Idyll," she could offer at the least. "Don't have to be about Sarbor until you feel that you're ready for it."
"Thank you," said the Monster Chef with a distant, focused bend to her brow. A bend that deepened, stewing with a growing tug of her lips, baring more of her uneven rows of teeth with each second that passed by. "But it'll be about Sarbor sooner or later, won't it?" She drank some tea to strengthen herself. "It'll be about Sarbor no matter how long I want to wait." And again. "It'll be about Sarbor because I have to talk about it." And again. "It'll be about Sarbor because you need to hear it."
But not a fourth time.
Instead, Idyll threw out the last that was in her cup over a bush, coating its green face with the dark-orange liquid. "This tea isn't helping as much as I wanted it to be," she told the tea stains as if it were all the tea's fault. "Why did I even expect it to help in the first place?"
Her following shrug began as defeated as her shoulders raised up, but as they loitered in the air they began to angle forwards instead. "And with each second I sit here feeling sad about myself another second passes by with Barbeqa being alone with all the woshuas." The shoulders came down with a growl-filled huff, hardening with a narrowed and challenging look that pierced through the long, bright hair. "So perhaps it's better not to let this goddamn rock-bottom drag on for longer than it has to be!"
Oh.
That Cter didn't expect…
"Right, Cter?"
The Monster Mage flinched at the intense look thrown at her by her friend sat just next to her. There was no distance between the two where the intensity could mellow, resulting in another couple of drops jumping out of the filled cup and landing on the green, Xoff-made robe. "R-Right," stammered Cter with a shocked swallow. "Only if y-you want to." Her cup drummed on the saucer as she put it down as to not spill more than she already had.
"I do," said Idyll without any or all waiver in her voice. "I love him to death and beyond, but..." Her four-fingered hand formed into a fist which she threw down at the armrest of the metal bench. "Dammit!"
Dammit.
"He used the fish fork for the meat!"
Dammit?
