"Excuse me? You wouldn't need the help of a human mage perchance?"

The question was spoken after a couple of long minutes with Cter pacing back and forth while doing her best to blend in with the crowd and to obscure that she was in fact just building up courage to ask if she could offer her assistance to the worker monster having some difficulties with whatever it is they were doing. It involved magic of some kind, and that Cter...knew.

She almost caused one or two collisions in the river of monsters by thinking she had enough courage to take a step forward, but hesitated in the last second. First it made a small Whimsum fly away from where her foot was about to step only to then burst into tears when it felt that it was being unfair to the human for being so scared of it just moving its foot. Cter reassured it to the best of her abilities that it was her fault, but the tears kept flowing.

Which led to a Shyren singing along to its lament.

Which led to an Aaron flexing his muscles over his ears.

Which elbowed a bird monster in the beak.

Which knocked out an apple out of a skeleton's hand.

And so on and so on.

The second time was when Cter looked for somewhere to discard the core of the apple she caught from the skeleton's startled throw. As it was busy jumping up on summoned bones that built a blue-glowing staircase for it to chase the bird it didn't hear Cter's calling for it that she caught its apple. The chase disappeared, or disapplead, which passed humorously through her head as she bit down on it a minute or so after she lost track of the flight of wings followed closely by the flight of bones screaming obscenities which were pretty loud despite the lack of lungs in the skeleton. It eventually faded out of hearing behind a dark-stoned house with a roof shaped like a gong with its rim curved upwards.

It was her long stare with the eaten apple in her outstretched arm that forced the monsters to either bend underneath or walk around, depending. A few slime monsters just squeezed underneath while some wolves rounded Cter's palm with an annoyed gnarl. When a young turtle finally plucked the core from her hand and thanked her for the meal Cter was brought back to the cobbled ground she stood on. "Don't mention it," she mentioned without thinking as her hand jerked back in a flinch.

The flinch had her sleeve reacting to her shifting emotion, and she could feel it almost magically massage her arm reassuringly. It gave her just a hint of confidence, but it was enough for her to take more than a step forward through the moving crowd. She focused her aura into a shell around her like an egg, daring any monster to bump into it and taste it. She knew they wouldn't.

Because not even her as a human dared this day!

A green, cat-like monster raised an eyebrow and folded an ear as he eyed up the robed human stood before him. He didn't hide his intentions at all, and instead confidently displayed them for Cter to read. "And why would a human mage care to help a commoner monster re-tarring a house?" His other ear pointed back towards the sea of river for Cter to join in with again. "The castle is up the hill. Go there instead."

Cter's sleeve flared in response to the surging emotion flushing through her. A chilling calm washed against, but only clashed into seething steam. "Do you need help or not?"

The green monster scoffed. "Sure!" he said despite not meaning it in the slightest. "Just give me some of your soul and we can get this done and be home for dinner for once."

Give him her soul?

"See!" The catt's ears flung straight as he scoffed against the human's hesitation. He threw out one of his three hands accusingly. "Can't even give something back that you've already stolen from a monster. Don't you dare lift a spell against me or the Monster Mages will make sure you never cast another spell in your life, human." His hand raised dismissively, almost pushing Cter back into the crowd behind her. "Go stroke your ego somewhere else, human. I am working here."

But she refused.

That didn't strike anything with the monster though. Cter's resolve curved around him completely like water around a drop of oil. He didn't even react when Cter repeated her question. "Is there anything I can do to help?" He only returned to his work as if she wasn't even there to begin with.

Alright then, guess he needed a demonstration and-

"Don't!" the green monster shouted over his shoulder, his ears now folded completely behind him in anger. "I know exactly what you're thinking. I can feel it like a thousand needles in my back. We don't need your help here, human." Visibly irate, and magically to boot, the monster stopped just short of creating magic as a threat. Not with killing intent, but with annoyed, bothered intent instead. "You got better things to do, and so do I, so please just leave."

Better things to do? But...wasn't this what she was supposed to do as a human mage? Cooperate with the monsters? Why...why such hostility? The anger was like shimmering heat around the monster and his aura.

"Don't act so taken back by this," he accused with a dramatic sigh. "Why should you, a human, and a human mage on top of that, offer yourself to someone so underneath your power? Just...go away." Again he shooed Cter away, and again she flinched. He didn't seem to notice that, so blinded in his emotions he was. "We monsters are not your pets, human." With a harsh finger he pointed down at Cter's sleeve. "So that you can abuse our memories and bend them to your own whim." Then at himself. "So that you can use that abusing to show us monsters how even more powerful than us you are. To mock us by showing us what, you call, real magic, can do."

The crowd behind Cter began to slow down as ears perked and piqued over the green monster's way. "I'm getting hot and sticky tar in my fur because this house was built through human means. Through the so-called Cooperative Connection between our two species. It's impossible to clean. I get soars each night!"

Cter had never seen anyone this angry before. All she did was ask if she could help! What did she do wrong? She didn't understand!

"I've got nothing else to say to you, human." The green monster shifted his eyes towards the crowd behind Cter. "Or you!" It began moving again through the force of his growl, and he turned around with a bitter huff to return to reheat the barrel of tar that had managed to settle. The heat from the flames blossoming in his hands Cter could feel all the way from where she was standing. It was burning just as wildly as her cheeks were, and after touching them and feeling it on her fingers, she let herself be washed away by the river of monsters.

The walk back home was shrouded to Cter, all of her focus went into keeping her volatile aura from escaping her and turning the heads of all monsters within several blocks of an area. I might've even pricked at that green monster again. Her head was hidden within her flipped-up hood which hung its deep mouth over half of her vision. "Romrom..." she whispered occasionally without knowing what to say or ask next. Her sleeve reacted each time to try and comfort again, but it could only reach so far without Cter prompting it with her soul. It was almost as if the inscribed lines tried to stretch themselves and embed into her robe and cloak so that it could comfort further.

Cter couldn't let in it as that would expose her aura and make her naked in the middle of a city of monsters she had found nothing but strife and contempt against her. Everything she was taught in Soul's School had been proven wrong! What was all those years of being taught about human and monster cooperation if all it led up to was her being yelled at in the middle of a busy street in a foreign country?

On steps dotted with tears Cter ascended to Idyll and hers apartment where she shut the door as hard as she could and ran through the accumulated miasma of leftover stew from a few hours before. Without even taking of her dirty shoes Cter threw herself onto the foreign bed inside the room she was only told was her, but didn't feel as hers.

"Romrom..." she cried into her sleeve that she dragged it close to her heart and soul. Her legs tucked in as did her chin like she did when she was a child inside her grandmother's winged care. "I don't understand anything!" Her cry hurt her throat, making her taste blood as she coughed from the strain.

Time lost meaning and sense to her as her tears pooled down her cheeks and onto the bed-linen scrunched and twisted due to her sobs making her convulse as she sharply inhaled. Her cheeks were burning hot, and her sleeve was glowing brighter than the sun outside. It came to a point that her tears turned into falling drops of ice as she desperately pushed out her magical self to be comforted by Romrom's memories.

A shimmering fog of chilled air hung in her room, pushed into a gentle rotation by her coughs. She wasn't freezing, her cheeks and crying were enough to push away the cold magic from her physical being. She relived Romrom and her jumping into that early-spring lake more times than they actually did when she was younger. Each time she would hang on Romrom's smile as the two rushed into the sauna while laughing off the cold.

"We're having so much fun we don't even need a sauna!" Cter let Romrom's joke linger as an echo inside her head. How despite Romrom couldn't smile with her beak, the rest of her face would shine up even more. Her puffed cheeks, her narrowed eyes, her widened arms with tickling feathers. Cter put her entire mind and soul to it, but even with how close she came to succumbing herself to the memories, she couldn't make them feel real.

Only as memories.

It exhausted her body, mind, and soul, and it wasn't long until her tears turned liquid again around her closed eyelids. Her sleeve pushed against her chest fell down onto the wet linen.

She fell asleep between the bounces of her arm against the bed.

As her eyes flickered open with difficulty through the crusted and dried water holding them together, Cter awoke what must've been hours later to a new smell permeating through her slammed-close door. It was sunset outside, with long, orange fingers reaching inside to curiously probe at how she felt.

Hungry.

Thirsty.

It smelled like Idyll was home. There was even some whistling sneaking in through the small gap underneath the door and the frame. Cter should help with the dishes now that Idyll had done the cooking twice that day. What had happened just before she fell asleep again was foggy in her mind. Too many emotions spent through her magic. It hurt her head, and she felt that her nose was stuffed.

She knew exactly what had happened though, and why it had happened. She was just too drained to have a continuing reaction to it at the moment. Not even to her hair hurting as she lifted her tired head from where it had laid soaked in her own tears. The brief glimpse she caught of herself in the mirror as she sleepily walked past it without lifting her feet would've scared her normally.

It was like she'd just woken up from having her bed been swept away in a storm. Seems that it landed where it took off though, and not at home again. Not home where her family could tell her that everything was going to be fine.

She sighed.

"Singe my soul."

There was a draft as she opened her door, almost as if it wanted to stay closed. It brought with it the rolling scent of the same cooking Cter had smelled the day before at that tavern rather than the cooking Idyll had done earlier in the day.

Seemed like Idyll managed to get herself a position at Krygino's tavern then. Cter should have been happy for her.

Should be…

"Cter?" Idyll piqued curiously from around the corner. "You're home? I thought you were out since you didn't answer when I came home." Cter heard, but she didn't have the strength to answer. "Were you asleep? Anyways, guess what?" The held-back excitement was unmistakable in her voice, and Cter wished that she could share it. "Mentioning you and your monster grandma worked! I did some hours as practice for Krygino, and he told me to come back tomorrow an hour or so before lunch to help!" The wooden ladle clanked happily against the pot's rim as Cter rounded the hallway wall into the kitchen. "I got us some more ingredients as I skipped back home, so I thought..."

The happy clanking stopped.

"Ebott's shadow..."

A scared clank rang out as Idyll dropped her ladle that she held in both her hands and rushed over to Cter.

"What happened, human?" She didn't know if she should touch, hug, or do anything. Cter's aura was so silent and subdued she had no idea how to react to it. Cter could tell, and she did her best to at least get something out so that the deadly, worried expression would disappear from Idyll's face.

As it scared Cter.

What came out of her was but a whimper turned quickly into a sob, but it was enough for Idyll to take a step in and let Cter's head rest against her scaly torso. It was rough on Cter's cheek, and at the same time it was the softest anyone had ever held her. Idyll pushed down Cter's hair into a semblance of order as a priority, stroking away the stuck strands over Cter's left eye. "You look even worse than yesterday when I first met you, Cter. What happened?" Idyll's grip hardened for a brief moment as she thought. "Why don't you sit down and we'll eat so that you can tell me, alright?"

Cter nodded.

Idyll nodded back.

Calmly she stood Cter up again from having leaned on her torso, and when she was sure that Cter could hold her own weight, Idyll gently pushed her towards the kitchen table. As the human walked over absently Idyll hurried back to her simmering pot to fill up two bowls with stew. She widened the fire with her foot as she ladled her cooking into the two bowls. In her hurry she almost dragged some cinders onto the floor as she rushed over with the bowl to the hunched-over human sitting silent with her head low.

"Here," Idyll offered as she placed the bowl underneath Cter's face. "It's fresher than earlier today. I found some meat too." A spoon as well, which she stared at, breathing slowly, as she waited for Cter to pick it up and begin eating. "Please," she urged after too many seconds of nothing. "Human, you acting like this frightens me. Are you sick? Do you need healing? A doctor? Human doctor?" Her eyes shot towards the door, and as her combed hair settled on her shoulders again she took a first step towards it. "I'll ask around for one."

There was no second step though. The sight of her only friend in this Monster Country so afraid and worried was enough for Cter to grab her spoon and begin eating. The sound of her mouth sluggishly clamping down on the wooden spoon froze Idyll in place for another two spoonfuls until she felt it was safe enough for her to sit down on her own chair and eat herself.

Tears again began to form as Cter's bowl emptied. Streams ran over her blossoming cheeks as she finished her first bowl. Timidly, Idyll asked if she wanted more. "Yes," Cter answered without hesitation. "Please, and thank you." As she ate more and more she felt strength returning to her. The grasp on her spoon became tighter. Her chewing on her stew became more ferocious.

She ate.

And she cried.

She ate again.

And she cried again.

Idyll kept serving her roomhuman with more and more vigor and conviction. With each bowl she could feel Cter's aura reach out further towards her. Cter wanted to explain. She wanted to tell Idyll! Idyll, in turn, wanted to listen, but without Cter's aura to put it into context that which she could not fathom her empathy would have rung hollow. It wouldn't have been projected back at Cter, which was what she needed.

"I'm sorry for making you do this," was the first thing Cter spoke when she had regained enough energy to do so. At the same time she was holding out her bowl for her fourth refill from Idyll, who only shook her head with her stern conviction on full display.

"I've known humans being sad from back home," she tried to reassure. The conviction missing in her voice even she heard though. "Not like you though, Cter." With a gingerly turn of her head from refilling Cter's bowl to towards Cter sitting with her forehead leaning into the palm of her hand Idyll huffed an exhale of uncertainty. "If something's happened that even you as a human couldn't handle… You as a human mage, even..."

Unbeknownst to Idyll, those were the worst words she could have tried and encourage with. It sliced at Cter's soul despite her knowing that Idyll couldn't have known. However, instead of succumbing again, Cter had enough to push back and steel herself. One more bowl and she could begin explaining.

Idyll hadn't even managed her first one by that point. Nevertheless, the roommonster did all she could just short of lifting the pot off the hook and pouring straight into the roomhuman's mouth. Even with the spectacle it would have been Idyll did not mind the short walks back and forth between the table and the simmering pot.

It was preparation for her job, after all.

As the hollow clonk of the bowl that had been emptied for six times faded from being hastily placed back down onto the wooden table, Idyll finally took a first spoon to her mouth. She chewed slowly while unblinkingly observing Cter catching her breath and wiping her brow of sweat. "Thank you," the human said in-between long and silent breaths. "Thank you."

Idyll nodded as acknowledgment, pausing briefly with her chewing to let the gesture get across fully. When she took in another spoonful of her own cooked stew it signaled that she was ready to listen. All Cter had to do was speak.

And speak she did.

It began as a thickening of her aura as she called back on the emotions she felt. Idyll braced for what was coming while at the same time reaching out to touch Cter's aura with her own. The table was too wide for her to hold Cter's hand, which was the human way of comforting. Idyll knew about that as she'd done it numerous time during her upbringing. She'd come to recognize it herself as a sign of comfort too.

"Shortly after you left I went out to see what I could do as a mage," Cter said with a hollow and forlorn voice. "I wandered around the city looking for someone that might've had use of a human mage. I didn't know what I was looking for though, just a vague idea." She brushed aside some hair from her face and behind her ear. "After like two hours of just walking without finding anything I found...worthy...enough of my skills I just picked a monster that was working."

The look that monster gave her as he read her aura like an open book…

"It was a green monster tarring a house helped built with human influence. Looked to be human carpentry rather than human magic. I asked if he needed help and he..."

The thickened aura reverberated like thunder through clouds. Idyll's blanched as it hit her. She dropped her spoon out of her mouth and was forced to clumsily catch it before it fell onto the floor. With a shaking hand she held the spoon. "I need a m-moment," she informed Cter through a solemn sigh.

The human understood. "I'm sorry." It must have been hard-hitting for the monster, feeling the full force of a human mage's extended and more forceful aura. Like a wall of wind, but out of water instead. Cter made herself aware of her aura and reeled it back in as best as she could. It was more than enough for Idyll to have felt it crashing over her, she didn't need to put herself forward no more.

"Continue," urged Idyll carefully after a minute of collecting herself. Cter waited for her to eat another bite of food before she did.

"He became angry that I asked. Extremely so. He could see right through me though. Knew instantly and exactly why I did approach him. That I just picked him out of the crowd after not finding anything that I thought was worthy to me."

The empathy from Idyll became more subdued. She didn't retract it, but she withheld giving more as Cter's story continued. It was a shift equivalent to blowing out a candle, with the lingering smell behind that spoke of the deed. Cter felt less warm as well. It was fair of a reaction though. "So you approached him not really to help but to…?" Idyll held her spoon in her outstretched shrug that she sent across the table. "Cter?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. I just...thought that...since I was a human I'd..."

"That he'd jump and click his heels with joy?" The spoon returned into Idyll's mouth as she leaned back in her chair and shook her head. It was a different shake to it though. A disappointed one, in her case. "Because you were a human?"

"I..." Cter rubbed her sleeve for comfort as she looked down in embarrassment. "I meant as a mage, even if I didn't say that. And it wasn't that he was a monster. It was that..." She gritted her teeth. "It was that he was just a monster. Just one. One monster, there where he was. I had a lot of monster friends in Soul's School, but with him just there working I thought..."

It would've been less insulting to Idyll if Cter had literally gotten up and danced around the issue instead of stumbling on her words like she did. Fact of the matter was that she didn't really know exactly why the green monster's words cut her so deep. Partly was his instant hostility, and partly was that she felt that there was truth in his words. No to mention how she again was metaphorically spat at for being the mage that she was.

Idyll's spoon thudded against her temple while she closed here eyes in thought. A couple of long inhales through her nose later she scratched her forehead with her spoon's handle and leaned forward on her folded forearms. "You..." She tapped a few more times to loosen up her words that she wanted to say. "You're a human, Cter." After a contemplating sigh out of her long muzzle Idyll dropped her spoon between her finger so that it was pointing over to Cter, a human. "And I'm not gonna say that I understand how it is for you being in a city of monster, because honestly I'm confused as well since I grew up among humans."

Cter braced herself for the heavy but as Idyll raised her hand and spoon.

"However."

That wasn't a but?

"I think you need to go out and face that green monster again. Walk up to him with your tail between your legs, so to speak. Your aura subdued underneath his, and apologize."

Might as well have been a but…

"I'm not saying that..." Idyll's face contorted into a forceful smile that clearly she didn't want to be formed. "I am saying that you did a really rude thing as a human against a monster," she corrected with fists clenched, almost to the point of splintering her spoon in half. "And you gotta learn from that otherwise we won't survive in this city." Her tone was harsh yet well-meaning. Cter could feel that Idyll gritting her teeth and almost feeling pain over speaking was more from her fighting off the urge to sugarcoat her words.

Cter was grateful for that, deep down. On the surface though she curled up in her chair with her gaze disappearing into a middle distance only of her own imagination.

"It's what you gotta do, I feel," Idyll finished with a shrug that washed her hands of the matter. "We'll...you'll get past this, Cter. Just gotta do this, and then in a month or so it'll just send a chill up your back thinking about it, in a good way."

Cter's eyes shot wide open, and her aura became stumped for a brief moment before it surged back inside her, and into her sleeve. The glow of it, and the sudden pull from her aura had Idyll falling over her bowl and spilling the rest of what was inside.

"I know you didn't mean it," said Idyll while doing her best to hold back her accusatory tone. She tilted her head up. "But-"

There was no human on the other side of the table.

Idyll's eyes fell down on a glimmering patch shaped like a hand where Cter just sat. Crystal flakes raised like wheat began bending down as if wilting towards the front door, which slammed shut a second afterwards. The gasp from Idyll as she realized what was created from a thin cloud from her mouth.

"Ice?"