"Come on, chickling! Open it up!"
"Yes! Yes! We're all so excited!"
"I have a pair of scissors if you need."
The smooth and ornate ribbon on the rolled parchment holding within it the future of the simple girl from the simple village a few weeks travel from Soul's School was scrunched as the simple girl from the simple village a few weeks travel from Soul's School clenched it between her fingers turning more pale as a bolt of cold shot up the length of her straightening spine. Given to her right hand by Professor Leraull with a winking smile that haunted her for the few minutes that passed afterwards with her entire family holding their collective breath underneath the canopy of an aspen whispering in the faint breeze a short walk from the murmur in the grassy field outside of Soul's School. The fresh blend from the Monster King's donated garden could still be smelled even with the large school building in the way.
Cter hadn't even noticed that she held her future in her non-dominant hand, but as she realized it from hurriedly throwing up her empty left hand waving limply to halt her mother's digging through her rucksack for a pair of scissors it started to feel a bit...wrong. Shouldn't she be holding it in her arm she was used to, well, use?
The sudden inquisitive thought born out of her mind juggling more than an octopus monster working as a court jester was halted as abrupt as said jester realizing that he'd forgotten his balls. Gently dragged over her raised hand by her monster grandmother was a sleeve with innards of felt, and an outside of leather. Faint arcane lines were inscribed upon the fabric, traveling across, around, and straight up the sleeve with a subtly shining white. "Hold up your arm a bit, child," grandma Romrom asked with a proud smile as the sleeve fit like a glove. The glove part especially.
"And you others," she addressed the rest of her human family behind her. "Make sure none of those boys can peek between you two, be it human or monster." Her commanding words held sway over almost as many humans as King Asgore and Queen Toriel did as she…well...not really ruled over her village as it would've caused some scathing political discourse between the human kingdom of Hjearta having some of its land being ruled over by a monster, but in all sense of the word, except the serious, grandma Romrom did indeed rule over her village as its Village Elder. She did so with wisdom and warm smiles generously serving food though, so the usurpation of human land was subdued by hearty stews and motherly words.
Perhaps that was how Clinic Hill in Xoff came about?
Her human family, on the other hand. "No, not that one, Cter. Your left, I mean, still. I gotta make sure it's fastened properly." That family knew that underneath the motherly exterior burnt a soul of the wildest fire, even with her ice magic. Crackling like a human-made fire with the intensity and color of a monster-made one. If there was as much as an outside glance glancing against her precious Cter on her most precious day of days with great weather and even greater company they'd have to sit on top of the carriage home with a colander instead of a magical umbrella since it would cover them just as much as they did Cter on her graduation day.
After an acknowledging hum from her graying beak that the barrier that Cter's parents had formed seemed robust enough Romrom then continued with fastening her sleeve weaved both with wool and her own memories as the catalyst. "Is it not too tight over your palm and arm?" she asked the same way she did about which pie Cter wanted when she was little. From the outset making it sound like Cter had a choice, but once she spared a thought on the tone she knew Romrom had already decided for her. With a careful eye that had to move close to see properly, Romrom brushed away some excess wool and linen on the rounded symbol with a feathered thumb. She allowed herself a snicker as to the part of her memory she attached to the hand. Cter will surely appreciate it, that Romrom knew.
"Now, Cter," Romrom spoke while stretching straight the rest of the sleeve. "I'll show you how to easiest fasten your sleeve. Take off your robe." Cter did so without much thought to it, for if the barrier her parents had put up with their bodies was good enough for Romrom it was good enough for Cter. "Begin with the strap across your torso," Romrom instructed while gently pulling on the leather strap bolstered with linen and wool for future comfort. Not immediate comfort as the first time it touched Cter's bare skin it was very itchy. It was still leagues better than the lent sleeves from Soul's School which were just pure, cheap leather that became sweaty and smelly after extensive use during the day.
The chafing was almost as bad as the studies during the early autumn and late spring days, even for the humans which were smart enough to keep the straps on the outside of their undershirts. It was easy to tell which ones did put in the thought not to chafe themselves. Apart from the complaining and red stripes across the skin, the ones that strapped over their undershirt had the human half of the school's symbol slowly rubbed away from the friction. While it did bring up a bit of discussion about whether it was on purpose or not or maybe that it paralleled the human learning more about monsterkind it mostly served as a way for Cter to pick out the students that had been at the school longer and therefor had a bigger chance of helping her with her studies.
Romrom must've read between the lines of the letters Cter sent home. Maybe not how Cter imagined how it would've been read, but she was not gonna correct her grandma about it. That Cter wrote 'The symbol on my undershirt given to me by the school is being scraped away faster than any other student' instead of 'I tug and tug on the strap all the time because even if I reread the homework ten times in a row I still don't understand it' might be obvious now with the answer literally in her right hand and the impact of it covering her left arm that it could have been read wrong, but at the time when she wrote it after hours upon hours of straight studying it sounded good in her head that it'd be taken the right way.
"You have to be careful with nestling the strap between your..." Romrom's voice trailed off as to not say out loud what should be said in whispers. "You know." Cter did very much know, yes. That Romrom did not have to worry about. "As you see I've padded with a bit more wool so that it won't chafe. I've heard stories from some of the mages passing by our village, and when you pass by later I want you to tell about your travels, not your ailments, Cter."
"Thanks," Cter replied with a surprising amount of sincerity and relief. She was sincere about being thankful for Romrom's gift, but she said it more as if she had been handed a glass of water after a hot day. While she didn't experience hurt from the chafing from the school's straps they did bring her some discomfort as it began sliding after becoming sweaty even outside the undershirt. Honestly, who in their right mind would've put it as a first layer except for their arm? Even stranger to her than some of the monsters Cter met in the hallways between classes.
"The strap then continues around and up your back and goes through this opening at the top of your shoulder blade where you can tighten it on the front and tuck the rest of the strap underneath this hoop." Romrom then offered to show Cter how it worked. She pulled the strap through the sewn hole. "Easier to unbuckle if it is on the front." And then pulled it tight.
Cter coughed from the strap slipping and burrowing underneath her rib cage and squishing her organs like a bagpipe. Even the low standards for music that passes through a bagpipe was a royal symphony compared to her cough.
"You're not killing my daughter, I hope, Romrom?" came a quirked remark from the man in the faced-away wall of two humans. "Again?"
"It's fine," Cter said with the lingering air still inside her. Her deep and guttural inhale afterwards didn't really support her case though as she bent over and accidentally slipped the strap out of her sleeve's shoulder. "Sorry," she muttered through her inhale but was only pushed up straight by a sighing Romrom reaching over almost like a hug to catch the strap again. Not even the slightest acknowledgment of Cter's apology was uttered as Romrom adjusted the strap to rest on Cter's ribs again.
"You've not eaten a lot during your studies, have you?" was instead uttered bordering on a disappointed scold. With a long tail feather Romrom tapped her adopted child, Cter's mother, on the shoulder, and was handed the rucksack without either the sender or the receiver looking at the other. "Good thing your father dared to convince me to bring with me my sewing kit," Romrom said into the rucksack as she began rummaging in it with one feathery hand while keeping the strap straightened with her other via her thumb between the tightest hole for the buckle and the actual buckle itself.
"I just reminded you just in case you put too much of your memories inside the sleeve, Romrom." The playful remark earned him an equally playful swipe of Romrom's tail feather across his neck to tickle him while she poked another couple of holes in the strap. He held it together though, but only barely.
"Is it comfortable now?" Romrom asked Cter while buckling the strap into one of the new holes she made. After some rolling of her shoulder and pushing back and forth with her opened palm, away from Romrom and her family, naturally, Cter concluded that no, it wasn't comfortable. It was more comfortable than the school's sleeve, but it was still slipping a bit on her shoulder. Romrom could tell from Cter's furrowed expression, so she then went back into her rucksack like a child into its yule stocking. "Then it might need a bit more tension," she concluded to herself between her mumbling before exclaiming happily as she found something suitable. "Aha!"
Presented inside the dark, feathered hand was a collar which Romrom quickly said to be a leather necklace to brighten the idea. "It's a strip left from when I sewed your sleeve. I think it might fit around your neck." After a quick measurement which Cter didn't even bother to try protesting against Romrom found a measurement where to cut it. A quick snip later with the scissors that finally found a use she motioned kindly for Cter to sit down which she did between two of the aspen's large roots.
"I'll be careful," Romrom assured while showing a needle and another strip of wool-lined leather. "Just sit still, child." Her words were so soft and soothing that not even Cter's father quirked a question as to exactly why Romrom had to be careful. "You'll find something nice to put in the necklace for me, right?"
Cter nodded.
"Sit still," Romrom repeated.
...Right. How quickly Cter forgot about that.
Just like how she also forgot the scroll in her right hand. She almost flinched as she looked down at her hand still clenched without her knowledge, but caught herself just before moving from her self-made startle. Always was a bore when one would bleed on one's magic sleeve given to one by one's loving monster grandma before one could cast one's first spell with it.
She was to open it in front of her family, and the thought brought her no comfort. The thought of Professor Leraull's winked smile wasn't enough to soothe her. If anything it raised the anxiety as Cter wondered if he was winking because of something else enough to nullify the relief from him saying that she had passed without saying it out loud.
Most likely though she was worried about how her family would react. She didn't know how high their expectations were, but with the fact that Romrom already had made a sleeve for Cter inscribed with memories it was safe to assume that the expectations were at least taller than Cter herself casting shadows of doubt over her blending together with her own shadows of doubt that were just as dark, if not darker, than Romrom's plumage. With the way she cheated too yesterday…
"Cter?" Romrom inquired carefully as she felt her granddaughter's shoulder began tensing. She lifted her eyes from the thread melding with the fabric of the same color to see the troubled expression on Cter's face quivering. Quickly she lifted up the flap of the sleeve's shoulder to make sure that she hadn't accidentally stabbed Cter. Romrom was always careful, how could she have done that? To her own granddaughter?!
But there was no blood.
Which only furthered Romrom's confusion. It shifted away from her thoughts and towards the now-sobbing human. "Chickling?" Her soft feathers stroking Cter's flushing cheek had the human leaning away and covering it up, but it was too late. "You're blossoming, Cter." A telltale sign that Cter was upset. Her cheeks went from fair and red to blossoming crimson as her emotions took her over. "What's the matter?" Romrom's eyes were drawn down to the scroll in Cter's hand almost imploding from the pressure where they softened with grandmotherly understanding. "Oh, my dear Cter."
It only took another audible sob for the wall of humans to turn around towards the distress of their daughter. Romrom waved them both over to help comfort, and a moment later Cter was enveloped by arms both big and small around her. At the same time she wanted to hug back as she needed strength and to push them all away as she didn't deserve to receive their comfort. She could only nestle herself onto the largest elbow-bend and wait for someone to say something.
After a silent minute it was her mother that spoke first. "Whatever is in that scroll we're gonna be proud of you, child. You don't need a stamp to be our mage, Cter. Romrom's given you your first mage sleeve, and that's all that matters. You've already graduated in our eyes. In our windows to our souls you're a mage, and that will never change." Her words trailed off as she leaned in to kiss her lone child on its troubled head.
"As always your mother speaks for me too," Cter's father chimed in inappropriately planned. The pile of humans and monster scoffed a collective chuckle, and as if by magic not yet understood, the weight on Cter's shoulders was lifted. "Don't think for a second that we're not proud of you, okay? Whatever it is you do."
"Okay," Cter answered weakly. It was an answer though, more than she thought she could muster. The callused farmer thumb drying her eyes was as soothing as it was rough, and she leaned into her father's hand with her cheek so that he could take away some of her cheek's heat like he did before.
"Promise?"
Like when she promised that she'd study hard?
"I promise."
Seemed that way.
"You don't have to open it if you don't want to," said Romrom as she nodded for the two humans to disperse. "However," she added while gently angling up Cter's chin. "I do want to you to show us some magic and see if the memory I gave you is compatible." With her other hand she gingerly tugged at the scrunched scroll, which rolled like a tear out of Cter's grasp and into the awaiting dark feathers. "They are some very special memories that I'm sure will help you along your journey." As if folding a blanket over a sleeping baby, Romrom gave Cter's sleeved arm back to her with a peck on her forehead. "How about an ice sprite in this hot weather?"
Cter had never done ice, only fire. She knew how to make ice, in theory, but she had only managed to conjure fire before. That was with a school sleeve though. That was with memories that she wasn't connected to. Perhaps with Romrom's she'd have better luck?
"I'll try, grandma."
"You'll try, grandchild."
Romrom helped Cter up on her feet again before taking a step back and joining the rest of the family to observe the magic. They all waited patiently as Cter studied the lines on her enchanted sleeve to get an idea of how her magic would travel along it. After making an approximate mental map in her head she closed her eyes and focused inwards. A few long and deep breaths later the familiar wave of awareness began flushing through her like the imaginary lake she was taught to conjure up in her mind before she would do any magic. The waves only had to reach her toes buried in the beach where she stood in her mind for her to recognize that she was more aware instead of necessitating it crashing over her fully.
The magical awareness made physical through her soul.
The strap running across her torso and back tugged just the slightest as her soul touched the magical fabric over the left side of her chest where she let the culmination of her magical being slowly assert itself outside her body. There were gasps dragged around her from her family, but her calm and collective focus stopped her family from becoming anything more than surprised. She could feel their eyes upon her soul even with it being underneath the chest covering of her grandma's gifted sleeve. Their intent was that of curiosity and pride, radiating from their natural aura like the warm sun above in the sky. Romrom's was the most curious one, and Cter let her grandma's aura carefully caress her soul. A memory flashed inside Cter's mind as Romrom's aura gently cupped at her soul. Of Cter as a baby. The first time Romrom held her inside her feathered arms.
Underneath the aspen it was the first time Romrom held her grandchild's soul, and just as careful and filled with wonder did she do the same. "Cter..." she whispered through her choked words. "You're so..." She embraced her grandchild's soul in a magical hug, and her emotions flushed into Cter. "You're so much like a monster." Cter made her soul fluster and blossom as much as her cheeks did. She could almost imagine it visible with how much it just...felt. She couldn't imagine how much it was to her monster grandma though. "Thank you so much for sharing this with me."
Cter chuckled at her grandma's quavering voice teetering on giving in and collapsing in tears. She did it with as much love as she was given though, for it was just as Professor Leraull said during one of his lessons. The first time a monster sees, and more importantly, feels a human soul that is related to it, be it a year-long friendship or familiar bond, is an event comparable to a human mother holding her newborn for the first time. It is opening a door that the monster could never imagine to be opened. To feel and to connect with a human magically. A touch that's more than physical to a being of magic. A second sun, almost. Love and hope that's an ocean to a monster lake.
And Cter is just as blessed sharing it as Romrom is being shared to.
"Now, Cter," Romrom whimpered with joy. "Let us see your magic."
With Romrom releasing Cter's soul to exist on its own there became an emptiness of sorts left inside her. A strange one that was as curiously strange and uncomfortable as the first time she experienced it. She had to fill it with the want to still be whole despite separating herself into two. One physical and one magical. Unraveling and making two out of the one that was her. Her body and soul, made discrete from being continuous, while still being dependent on the other. It was the first and most important thing taught to the humans at Soul's School, and something that was so ferociously hammered into the students that even Cter picked it up without help.
The need to stay determined.
Because otherwise there could be no magic from a human.
Cter called upon the comforting nostalgia only distant memories could bring as she recalled the way she felt when she set off to join Soul's School. The drive she had that would move her forward through her courses despite the difficulty. It swelled from a point inside the emptiness to an engulfing filling that asserted itself over the emptiness via the smiles and hopeful waving her family showered over her as she walked towards the awaiting carriage.
The same family that now stood in front of her waiting eagerly. They'd waited for years! She'd not disappoint them! She wouldn't!
She was determined not to!
The rekindled awareness began as a tickling sensation over her chest where her soul made contact with the chest piece of her sleeve. It probed the inscribed memories given by Romrom, looking for the starter memory where Cter could connect herself. It didn't take long as almost all of the memories her grandma had enchanted into the fabric were of the two being together.
There were some lines though which felt...distant. Memories before Romrom even knew about Cter? Memories from her youth? They were hazy and incoherent to Cter.
For the moment.
Cter chose a memory of Romrom and her bathing in their village's lake as the initial sensation of cold as they first entered the recently melted spring water. It would be helpful in understanding how the small part of Romrom's soul present in the memories reacted to it.
And then made to act to it.
Made to act via Cter's soul. Fueling the small sensation with her intent and emotion along the memories on her sleeve until she could project and conjure it.
"Along the thick line first until it branches off into that fork and then along the one wrapping underneath the arm as it seems better for ice magic with its harder angles since it reminds of a snowflake which will help associate with cold as a primer and…"
A slight chortle broke her focus. Cter looked up to the amused faces of her family, realizing that she was muttering to herself. She dragged an uncomfortable smile as she felt the awkwardness take her over. The sudden change made a small spurt of misty ice shoot out of her glove with a sound very similar to a forced fart. The shimmering mist hung in the air for a couple of long seconds before evaporating as Cter balled her fist so hard it almost broke her fingers.
"..."
The rapidly shifting shadow from her soul slurping back into her tensed body frozen more solid than any ice she could ever produce if she hadn't gotten cold feet in the wrong sense made her smile morphing from trying to look confident to giving up on being confident with the grace and delight as a Snowdrake's first repertoire a bit of an avalanche of petering self-consciousness now continuous again with her soul back inside her where it belonged and where Cter never wanted it to move outside from ever again for surely her career as a mage had already ended before it even began and–
"That was incredible, Cter!"
It…
It...was?
"Was that your soul? It looked...it looked like something I'd never seen before!" her mother exclaimed reservedly, as if held back by her own tongue wanting to say something else. Her face relaxed into contemplation as her tongue's want spread over her like a veil. "It...felt like I'd seen it before, but that I hadn't at all at the same time." She looked to both her sides for confirmation from her family, and her husband nodded eagerly.
But not Romrom.
"It felt...it felt like you, Cter," her mother continued while shifting her body and hands impatiently, almost frustratingly. It was clear that she had trouble finding the right words to describe her thoughts. "Like it was you, but another form of you." She again looked to both her sides for confirmation that she wasn't the only one thinking this strangely. This time she rested her eyes on her monster mother. "How was it to you?"
Romrom entire body heaved with her sigh of content. "Like it was the first time I'd ever seen my grandchild." With feathery arms stretched wide she again enveloped Cter with love and care. Physical arms instead of magical, but with just as much radiating pride. "Don't worry about that magical petering of yours," she reassured with an encouraging tussle of Cter's hair. "I did the same in my youth."
The way Romrom mentioned her youth sounded...strange. Like Cter was supposed to react to it someway. With Romrom holding her eyes and slowly raising her brow as if waiting for something Cter felt her own brow lower as she began searching her mind for what it could mean.
"Not your memories, Cter."
Not hers?
Then…
The human lifted her sleeved left arm to inspect it again. Could it be? The hazy memories she felt? Was it Romrom's from when she was young?
After gently prying open her grandchild's fingers to expose the glove inside, Romrom let a swirl of snowy magic collect in her palm to form a diamond of clear ice that was as black as her fur and feathers. Her gray beak was distorted through the slowly spinning magic as she let it travel from monster palm to human palm. "Seek out Krygino once you arrive. He's an old friend of mine, as you will see. We've already arranged transport for you, Cter. It's there you will learn more than you could ever do here."
Before Cter could say something in return, the cold she tried to emulate came rushing up her arm. Her soul again flustered as Romrom's piece of soul reacted to its original magic. The embroidered memories of Cter and her monster grandma became as clear as if they were happening all at the same time. The hazy memories cleared up like the sun piercing through thick mist, and Cter found herself as a young monster turning her black, feathered head around her shoulder to the large and magnificent nest she had decided it was time to leave from.
Away from the humble houses of the city's outskirts built by humans to house humans. A sign of a changing time that Romrom decided she was to do the same with in a human country instead. From her home at the bottom of the large hill standing proud in the middle where she'd grown up among monsters with the occasional human around. From the way those humans had brought such playfulness and new ways of looking at life with just their presence and passing-by Romrom decided that she would do the same for a human country. She'd travel to Hjearta and find her future among humans.
Her neck craned up one last time towards the glistening castle on the hill where she would send her children to visit one day. She'd foster a mage through a monster's parenting.
The marble walls upon the hill blinded her as the sun peeked out from behind a cloud, and Cter opened her own eyes to see the same monster she suddenly found herself as standing in front of her with a smile from the beak fading in color.
"Jarasevo..." Cter spoke, her own voice sounding strange to her for a moment before remembering who she was.
Romrom nodded.
"The Monster Capital."