Perhaps it would have been for the better had Cter kept the drab robe that he humans gave her to hide her Monster Mage attire. It would have protected her from being exposed. Shielded her from being recognized when she least expected it. If she would have kept it, then the pain of being recognized would not have caught up to her.
She could have made it conform to her terms and been recognized when she wanted to rather than have it be out of her control. Would she accept it though? Would it be better for her to accept the condition given to her by the humans under the pretense of keeping her a prisoner?
"Oh no, it's all over your leg."
Or could she muster through the dried feeling from the dropped soup?
"It'll be fine. I'll have Fang Shuey wash it later."
The concerned look from the blue monster flickered up to meet the comforting nod of her Monster Mage friend. "You sure?" was asked more out of the feather-covered side than the scaly one. A cluster of feathers rose as an inquisitive brow quirked. "Still though, sorry that I spilled it all over you."
It wasn't Idyll's fault that Cter rounded the corner the exact same second Idyll did from the other side carrying a tray of soup. Nor was it her fault that Cter said that she had a spare robe to change into despite not really having one. Her green, Xoff-made robe was all that she managed to bring with her from Soul's School. The rest of her wardrobe was there as spoils of war, and with how long Cter was confined into that two-storied house they sure were spoils by the time she was taken to the negotiations.
And what Cter had left behind Fang Shuey had moved to better storage.
And Kurant's robes were too small.
And Kry's robes were too large.
"It's not your fault, Idyll."
Really, it wasn't.
However, while Cter could explain away why she had to still be wearing her soup-soaked robes, there was one thing she could not explain about the whole interaction. "If you don't mind, Idyll, but why were you carrying a tray of soup earlier today?"
The Monster Chef stopped her stirring of the stew stood on a portable stove between her and Cter. "I'm sorry?" she stalled for time to let her mind come back from focusing on her magical flame underneath the pot she was stirring in.
Her bright hair bouncing up from her jerk-up of her neck had the sunset glimmer through the golden strands, illuminating the feather-covered side of her face with a soft bloom. Cter had missed seeing the sunset play around in Idyll's hair. It felt nice seeing it again. "Why I was carrying the soup?"
"Yes," Cter nodded. "Why weren't you using a cart like usual?" She adjusted the soles of her shoes onto the slanted slates of the roof to be able to lean her folded arms onto her knees where she rested her sideways-leaning head. "You usually use the cart so that this don't happen, don't you?"
The Monster Mage motioned with her hand over her soup-stained leg as if she was about to freeze the stain with magic and then pull it off. It had soaked too much into the fabric though which would have made the effort borderline futile. Had she done it earlier, like immediately after the spill happened, then it would have been no problem.
The time it took for Cter and Idyll to break away from their hug immediately after the spill happened was long enough for the soup to almost become a permanent part of Cter's robe though. The hug they shared after not having seen each other for over a year did not care for any soup, spilled on legs or unspilled in the few bowls that had managed to land upright. Their hug was more important. Their friendship was more important.
God, Cter had forgotten how much she had missed sitting alone with Idyll on the castle rooftop for a sunset meal.
Singe her soul, it had been so long ago…
"It would have been a longer walk to get a cart than to reach Queen Toriel's gathering, so the risk of spilling would have been greater." Idyll's eyes flipped to the dried stain that colored the deep-purple fabric a sickly gray. "Would have."
"The...The queen?" stammered Cter while Idyll tasted the boiling stew for seasoning. "Was the soup for Queen Toriel?" Did that mean that spilling it meant that Idyll and Cter were a threat against the Monster Royals? Was there proof of insubordination against the Monster Queen on Cter's leg, worn for all to see?
"Yes," answered Idyll with a calm and relaxed tone to her voice that only harshened lightly as she tested the taste of her stew. "Maybe a bit more onion?" From her small sack of vegetables she rummaged forth one which she peeled and sliced with her claws. "Oh, and the soup was from the tavern down in Jarasevo where she and I used to work in."
The large chunks of onion were folded into the stew with a few languid stirs of the wooden ladle. "She had an old friend for visit so she sent word to me if I wouldn't mind bringing some of soup with me on the way up to the castle."
An old friend of the Queen's? Interesting. Cter had never really thought of Queen Toriel having friends. Neither with King Asgore for that matter, but with how Cter saw him talk with the Xoff king it shouldn't really be a surprise to her anymore. There was a love between them that Cter recognized as the same between Idyll and her.
Friends that had been through thick and thicker and come out stronger on the other side together. It had Cter curious as to who this friend of Queen Toriel could be. It wasn't the Hjearta Queen or King, that was for sure. Perhaps it was one from when before she was the Monster Queen? If she asked for Idyll to bring with her the soup from Jarasevo then that was the most probable case.
Speaking of that though.
"Why were you in Jarasevo?" Cter asked in a slightly, accidentally accusing manner with a dubious furrow to her brow. "You don't usually head down there from what I remember."
The wooden ladle was tapped a few rhythmic taps on the cast iron rim as the Monster Chef brushed her feather-side hair behind an imaginary ear to see better over the sunset-glazed town that had yet to be touched by the war. "It's hard for me not to since I am living there now." She turned a toothy smile to Cter. "Again."
With her thumb Idyll swiped the backside of the ladle and gave her onion-infused stew a lick. After a few seconds of it ruminating on her tongue, she gave it an approving nod. She placed the ladle back into the stew with a dipping toss and reached for Cter to hand over her bowl. "I live down there now with Donial not far from where you and I lived. A bit better too as we have our own house."
Her handing it back proved a bit more difficult as Cter's surprise was too much for her to hold the weight of her stew-filled bowl. Since there had already been one embarrassed spillage already, Idyll kept Cter's bowl for when the surprise had smoothed out for the Monster Mage. "Evan has a little garden for me to try my hand at some gardening that King Asgore has been more than happy to teach me about."
Cter's nod was absent. "I see." As were her words. Had her friend not shoved the rest of the bleeding onion under her nose to drag her back onto the roof from the clouds above where her mind was, she would have risked falling off. "I mean...uh..." Cter blinked forth a few tears due to the strong scent of the onion which she dried off quickly. "I just...I didn't think you'd want to get away from the castle." Cter was happy for her friend, but she was also a bit confused. "Aren't you needed here?"
A somber pout had Idyll's thumb fidgeting at the rim of Cter's bowl. "Well..." She saw what she was doing and handed it over before she accidentally dipped her fidgeting finger into it.
"It might look that the castle is as busy as it is, but really the castle has been more empty than I've ever seen it be before. There are fewer monsters here, but those that are here have more to do than usual. Really, you and I bumping into each other is just one of many times something like that has happened here these last months. It's hectic, but the mouths that needs to eat are fewer. Even counting in those of the recalled monsters with multiple mouths there are still less than half here at the moment. Barbeqa can handle it herself now that she has learned how to better control the Woshuas."
Idyll threw an eye at the edge of Jarasevo hidden behind the many differently shaped rooftops. "I am handling cooking for the monsters that have been displaced due to the war." She scoffed a light chuckle. "But right now I'm cooking for a monster who has come home again from the war, I suppose." And filled her own bowl with stew. "A good opposite."
Cter saw her friend raise her bowl like a glass to cheer with, but it didn't feel right to her. "Guess so," she instead said with her gaze wandering the outskirts of Jarasevo to find both where Idyll's house was and where the monster refugees were.
She hadn't seen anything obvious from the back of Aajja, but although she was quite familiar with seeing Jarasevo from above in her mage tower, she wasn't used to seeing Jarasevo from far, far above. Besides, her eyes were more focused on how Jarasevo Castle glistened from far above, and how green the Royal Garden was with its white, surrounding walls, upon one of which she was sitting on once more while enjoying a meal with her best friend.
"A bit more to the left," corrected Idyll with her mouthful of stew shunted to one cheek as Cter's eyes wandered over Jarasevo. "Start from where you and I lived and then go down the main road from there, so to speak. Not towards the fountain and Time's Square, but the other way for when we went to buy mushrooms from that one slime monster, you know?"
Did she? "From the one that changed his shape into me because he had never seen an adult human before and wanted to know how it felt to have a pair of human..."
Cter had all but forgotten that.
How unfortunate that she had to remember it again.
"And who made them even larger than mine since she thought mine too small? Then exposed them without a single pause for thought because she was disappointed that I was hiding mine from sight? Just...flopping them out in the open for the entire damn shop to see saying that they're so perky and blushy and asking me why the hell I would want to hide them away from anyone for any reason?"
Idyll's shake of her head didn't manage to hide her bemused smile. "No, not the Moldsmall one who wanted to feel how it was to have ears," she said with a few drops of stew spurting out from her bloated cheek. "The Moldsmall one was for the berries. I'm talking about the slime monster that showed the mushrooms we wanted with its shifting appendage." Idyll poked into her bowl with her spoon, searching. "She had a color like this," she demonstrated via a piece of carrot. "Set us up with some butter-flung chanterelles on toast after we had shopped there for a while."
That...might have helped. Cter felt that she should have recognized it, but didn't. She knew that it was true, but couldn't place the truth in her mind. "And after that?" she instead asked while pretending to remember while looking in the vague direction Idyll had guided her gaze towards.
Cter's friend was keen though, and raised an eyebrow at the Monster Mage. "You can just say if you don't remember." With playful dances of her fingers Idyll reached for Cter's left arm. "Should I just give you it instead or–"
"Don't."
"Okay."
As quickly as Idyll began the playful teasing Cter shut it down. She knew what Idyll was trying to do, but she was not in the mood for it. Not with knowing that it was possible for her left arm to become much, much more. With Manny having sacrificed all of his magical potential to hold the Second Fusion captured within him there was a possibility for the White Flesh to begin growing on him as it had done with Cter. With the Second Fusion's presence being throughout his entire magical being it wouldn't be contained to just his arm like on Cter. Or if it even was contained on Cter's arm…
In any case though, it wasn't something Cter wanted to make jest about.
For she had some theories that had been brewing while flying with Aajja. None of which she wanted to talk with Idyll about.
However there was something good she could get out of it. "Did you ever meet Manny when he was here, by the way?" The topic of Idyll's house was better saved for when the conversation swung around more positive. "Or were you busy with things outside the castle while he was here?"
Idyll's cheek which she had shunted her mouthful of stew into looked a bit looser after she had swallowed her bite. "With the way you begin mentioning with his name has me thinking that he's no longer the Fifth Monster Mage, yes? He really wasn't one to begin with, from what I could gather. More a reason to get you back than anything else." She didn't need Cter to directly answer it to know that she was right.
"Only a few times did I even see him, and even fewer of those times I was meant to see him." Idyll held a spoonful of stew in front of her mouth for a thoughtful second before her small sigh out her nose blew away the rising steam. "He smiled each time he saw me. A very childish smile, like I was someone he didn't expect to see that day. Fair enough, really." She let the handle of the spoon hang out her mouth while she suckled on the rest. "I'm struggling to remember if I smiled back at him though." Something small ignited in her aura. Even if not meant to, Cter still felt that she had to mention that she noticed it.
"I won't search your memories for if you did, Idyll," the Monster Mage said out loud to make it known to both.
"Sorry," the Monster Chef apologized with a brief grit to her teeth which angled the wooden handle downwards. "I didn't… It just..." Her defeated sigh had the wooden spoon falling out her mouth, catching itself in the last second on her uneven rows of teeth. "I'm sorry," Idyll repeated in lieu of her other words failing her.
"Just want to make sure," explained Cter with her right hand on her friend's shoulder. "I know you just want me to feel more comfortable with it, but not her, and not now. I promise you I've been feeling better with it, but just...not now."
Idyll's rough skin was soothing for Cter as the Monster Chef caressed the back of the Monster Mage's hand with her feathery cheek. Her bright hair veiled around it. "I understand, Cter. It's been too long since you headed away to help with the human war only for it to turn into a war towards us. Then you were taken prisoner which I only found out a month or so after it happened since I was busy with our new home and my new duties and..."
A tired, weary raspberry had Idyll's cheeks and lips flopping loosely. "Each time I think that surely there can't be more that can be put on your shoulders it just gets worse and worse. Nowadays though," said Idyll while tilting her neck up again so that she could see what she was looking for. "Nowadays I feel some of that weight on my own shoulders."
Cter kept her hand on her friend's shoulder. Through it she could feel the weight Idyll was talking about. It was similar to what Cter felt on her own shoulders. The weight of holding up the hope for monsterkind.
"I've managed to be much more creative with my cooking," flashed a silver lining on Idyll's scoffing lips. "When faced with cooking for volume rather than taste there are certain caveats you have to keep in mind. I could make the soup more robust and smooth by mixing in some more milk into it, but it is better to use that milk for a base for the next meal instead. Two meals are better than one, and even more so when you're not in a position to feed yourself."
She tapped her spoon on the rim of her bowl impatiently, but not enough to have the stew splash around. "However, I've found that taste is almost as important as the food being filling, especially in the conditions I'm cooking for."
Idyll had done more for monsterkind in the war than Cter had. Far, far more. Cter had only been a reason for negotiation. She herself hadn't done anything. Idyll though. Cter could see, hear, and feel how much she had done. Her aura had the shimmer of someone who had put their all into their duty. All of her soul into helping the refugees from the war. Cter was proud over her friend.
So very, very proud.
"Taste brings with it the warmth of the soul. Taste brings with it familiarity and comfort. A filled stomach soothes the worry. Eating to live quells the worry of the meal you've already eaten being your last. Living to eat though? Wanting to eat because you look forward to the taste and the enjoyment of it? That soothes the worry even more. I feed the refugees, those displaced by the humans. The dust of those that did not make it will forever be with them. At times you can see dust in the air after a new batch of refugees arrive. You can see that there is death on them. They have nothing to live for except to survive, and that brings no hope at all. Eating well gives them something to live for. Suggesting that I add turmeric next time because that was how their mother made it has them remembering when this war wasn't. It has them remembering their mother as alive rather than dusted by humans."
The wooden spoon sank into the stew as Idyll wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand. A few tears managed through, and Cter watched as one rolled down past feather after feather until it finally reached the bottom-most one on her chin where it broke off. It landed into the bowl of stew with an inaudible plop.
"You've done good, Idyll," the Monster Mage said with all the love she had within her soul. "You've done so very good for these monsters. More than I ever have." She put up her hand sternly, interrupting Idyll's imminent protest. The tears from her eyes trailed behind her as her head whipped around, and as it came to a dead stop from seeing Cter's sternly raised hand, her hair caught up with her too much.
It swept across her face like a shoal, hanging over her muzzle in separated strands. "You're there for the monsters, Idyll. You're there with them directly. I… What I am protecting is monsterkind. All of us. The concept, the idea, the zeitgeist of monsterkind. For that, the monsters look up to me as an ideal. As someone who's there in spirit for them. I am a presence for them, but you are presence next to them. You put food in their hands. That I can't do. That is not what I am supposed to do."
But what is it she was supposed to do then?
Wait for whatever it was that King Asgore and the king of Xoff had come to unified terms about?
"It's strange," chuckled Idyll with an anxious bounce to her muzzle that dislodged her separated hair. "Hearing you be so humble with who you are and what you've done shouldn't surprise me since I've heard you say that a thousand times already, yet it does." She shook her head slowly. "You've been away for too long, Cter," was said trough a crying chuckle. "Please don't be away for that long again. I know you always come back, but..."
A chuckle that broke down immediately.
"I've already..." Idyll had to say it though. "I've already seen Sarbor for the last time." The bowl of stew she held weakly finally fell out of her hands. "He's already had his last meal from me. I'll never..." It crashed against the rooftop slates, rolling down with hollow clonks and spilling its contents in a long, viscous line behind it. "I'll never cook for him again!"
And she didn't want for it to be the same with Cter. She had weathered Cter traveling away for the supposed greater good, but finally Cter didn't come back when she was supposed to. She was kept away by the war, the same as Sarbor was.
"Idyll..." Cter moved the pot of stew with the crackling magical fired underneath it to the side with stasis magic so that she could reach over to her friend for a hug that she so very much needed. "I won't go away like that again," she promised into the sobbing monster's aura and soul. "And you will cook for him again."
Shadows passed over the rooftop.
"The war will be over."
Three of them.
"I promise."
Landing carefully in the Royal Garden.
"The war will be over soon."
