The low sun rolling down the slope of a distant hill made the many long shadows from the widely diverse houses and building bow towards the glistening castle that stood tall with its many proud towers and flags. The reflecting radiance tried to gently persuade the shadows to stand up and not bow down yet again this late an evening as they did every single day, but as usual the shadows did not want to hear of it.
Cter's eyes closed in reflex as she passed by the alleyways between the many houses and streets her sprinting feet took her through. She did not have the mindset to stop and appreciate the glimmer and awe at the castle that produced such beautiful late-summer nights. One could almost catch it turning a pink and purple hue during the last few minutes of sunset as the shimmer in the large walls would refract the same as the sky above.
That particular color was named as Royal Purple, and the wine from the grapes grown in the Royal Garden produce a wine of strikingly similar color, hence its identical name.
Cter passed by two taverns which advertised that they had that purple bottle in their cellars. It was seldom sold due to its cost, but just having one to be shown and boasted about was enough for those taverns fortunate enough to gain a Royal Supplier status.
The sprinting human counted those as she passed. If she remembered correctly there was one more to appear as she turned the orange corner in front of her. After shielding her eyes with her sleeved arm for a moment so that her eyes could acclimate from dark shadows to blinding sunset, she scanned the new street.
There was an ebb in the river of monster passing her by, but it was still more than the dry street she'd just ran down. She was certain that it was the same street she was looking for, and as she began catching her breath from having ran for, what felt like, an hour, the oily and bitter smell of tar entered her lungs.
She coughed, but with a smile. It was the right street! All she had to do was find that green monster again.
And help him!
Her hand twitched as the thought rushed through her. She subdued it though as it would do no good if he felt her from far away. He'd have to notice her by hearing, not aura. Otherwise the surprise wouldn't have a chance of working.
Cter had planned it all the way while she was running that evening. It'd distracted her from her disagreeing stomach first filled to the brink of exploding and then bounced around as she took off running and never stopped. She allowed herself a couple of minutes to get her body in agreement by leaning her back against the wall just beside the door of a sock shop. The monsters passing by cast very judgmental looks at her.
Why they did Cter had no idea at the time. Once it was explained to her it would plague her mind for the rest of her life.
After the recuperating minute had passed, Cter dragged her hood over her head and stuffed in her hair inside it. She also rolled down the robe's fabric over her sleeve to further obfuscate her human form and her being a mage. As an extra precaution which proved to be wildly unnecessary, Cter observed the walking of some of the monsters before she adopted one that she felt was enough unlike a human's that it wouldn't arouse any suspicion. As she furthered along the trickling river towards the smell of hot tar she took notice of her beating heart. It was different from how it was when she ran earlier, which she had felt in her ears, temples, arms, legs, everywhere. As the smell became thicker in her nose and lungs though the beating became more anxious, as if her heart was only in her head. "Calm down," she told herself inside her hood. In a strange way it worked. Her subduing her aura made it so that the words she said felt as if it was someone else's. As if someone close to her told her to calm down and to focus. It was a disconnect between her and her aura which she was taught over and over again to try and keep the two the same.
In this case though it helped to at least pretend that it was an outside force acting on her. A pair of heavy hands to gingerly push down on her shoulders and forcing her to relax. "Calm down," she repeated as she passed by the first freshly-tarred house. "Calm down," she said again as another passed by. "Calm down."
Cter's steps slowed to that of a snail's. One incidentally passed her by looking at her with one of its slimy antenna before hurrying along after its fox friend, but the realization didn't strike the human at all. The green monster was close. She could feel his frustration ever so slightly. Her head tilted up and she dragged her hood back just a bit so that she could visually confirm where he was, but even with the comparatively sparse monsters around compared to earlier that day she couldn't pick out a stationary color from the varying rainbow passing her by.
After clumsily elbowing her way more to the side of the monster river where the tar stench was the strongest, Cter continued her walk. The run she'd just as abruptly started as she'd finished began to assert itself in her legs, making them slightly heavier. If they would even be enough for her to rely on to be standing straight once she confronted the green monster she didn't know. She couldn't worry about it though since all she could think of at that moment was how things could go wrong.
So, so many things…
It didn't have time to stir inside her though.
The heat of magical fire tickled at her cheek, as did the stinging scent of heated tar. Cter turned her head towards where her cheek and nose where pulling it.
And there he was.
"Excuse you!"
The call for attention was huffed by a passing griffon as it bumped a blue-tinted wing into the hooded figure that just stopped all of a sudden for seemingly no reason at all! It retracted its magnificent wing while muttering a swear in a strange language.
The collision darkened Cter's vision.
Before she pulled back her hood knocked more over her face by the griffon's wing she took the time to go through her plan one more time in her head.
Walk up.
Ask if he needs help again.
Be ready for his anger to whirl through her soul like needles.
Then…
Cter rolled up the robe's sleeve to expose the glowing one below. It caused a jester's eyebrow to shoot up before hurrying its step as Cter clenched her hand, enveloping it in a cold mist sprinkled with flakes of snow.
Then apologize.
With a final inhale to prepare herself Cter took a lurching step forward, causing her hood to fall down behind her.
"Excuse me!"
The green monster flinched as if stabbed in the back. Instantly his aura shifted from tired, yet hopeful, probably due to him almost being done with his work, to frustrated and befuddled. His flaming hands tightened around the almost empty barrel he was heating up, stopping just short of picking it up and throwing it behind him. With a glare shot over his shoulder he made the returning human aware of exactly what he felt about her return.
It felt like needles to Cter. Not hurting ones as it was a monster shooting them through his aura, but it was enough for Cter to feel the intent and anger behind them. She didn't defend or do anything against them though, which made the green monster furrow his brow. "What do you want, human?" he asked as Cter finally stopped walking towards him, stopping a few steps away from him at a respectful distance. He made sure to slick his voice as much poison and malice he could muster, and to simultaneously project it magically in the form of a violent flame that writhed as if in pain before fading away above the human's head.
Cter didn't pay the magic any mind even as she felt its discontented heat spread over her hair like a drop landing on top of her. "I want to help you," she said while carefully releasing her aura to show the intent behind her statement. "I want to apologize for earlier."
As the green monster felt through her aura for the slightest, most minute divergence from the tone of her voice his brow furrowed deeper and deeper as he looked. Another frustration flared up around him, and he eventually spat a scoff while he turned his head back to his barrel. "Apologize if you want," he huffed while igniting his magic around the bottom metal strap on the barrel. "Just let me finish my work in peace, will you? That's how you can apologize the best." His words was that of someone that was too tired to care. Too fed up with the day while still knowing he had arguably the worst ahead of him. He didn't need to humor the human's apology after what she did earlier, but if it meant that she'd just go away if he did then whatever. "Just say that you're sorry and it'll be done."
No, it wouldn't. It wouldn't be enough for Cter. Yes, the monster was right in that this was more for her than it was for him, but the intent behind it wasn't for her. That was for him. It was her intent to help him, and she'd figured out exactly how she could. She had to convince him to let her do it though.
And that was what she feared would go wrong.
"Give me your arm, please," she asked while reaching out with her right one. "I want to help you."
"Just say that you're sorry and then leave." The green monster made it clear that he didn't want to repeat himself.
Cter took a step forward. "I promise you it'll help you."
He shook his head hard. "Just say. Nothing else." The flames around his hands grew more volatile.
Cter took another step forward. "Please."
The last plead was too much for the green monster, and he flung himself up with his arm thrown out. The flames he kept ablaze arced in the sky like an agitated shooting star, but as it landed it didn't crash, it only came to a resting stop.
Inside Cter's right hand.
"What are you-"
Cter let the magical flames dance around her robe's fabric which she had pulled over her naked right hand. It didn't hurt her as that wasn't the monster's intent for his magic, but it still was uncomfortably hot for Cter. Her robe provided some slight protection against the heat though.
Her left hand, shrouded in gently howling, cold mist, moved towards a patch of tar on the green monster's arm. "Hey!" The monster's frightened protest split around Cter as she began focusing in on the nuances of his aura. On how his emotions manifested themselves in his magical body. The flow and ebbing of it, like blood in a human, but not confined to their fleshy vessels. For the dust and emotion of a monster their aura was their entire vessel. Cter wasn't able to deduce anything about the green monster's personality as he understandably closed his more deeper feelings off from her probing.
She felt enough to separate his fur from tar though. Enough to wrap her magic fueled by her grandmother's inscribed soul around only the patch of tar still warm to the touch. It proved difficult to both have Romrom's magic not interfere with the green monsters, and especially vice versa. Cter worked quick, freezing the tar enough so that she could pluck it off. In her hurry not to let the green monster's magic poke with her own she couldn't fully separate the tar from the green fur, resulting in sparsely spread strands of green poking out the frozen-solid clump of tar in her hand.
Like the first strands of grass poking out of mud during spring.
Surprisingly, the green monster didn't react to the plucking. He must've been used to it, as earlier he told Cter about how he'd spend every evening getting it off him. Probably only so much he could do to heat it up into a liquid on his arm before it began to burn him. Cter have had evenings like that too with her mother and Romrom trying to get caked mud out of her hair that had formed throughout the day as she played outside.
"You..." the green monster uttered as Cter let go of his arm. With watering eyes he stared at where the patch of tar had been just a few seconds before Cter had applied her magic. His other hand came to touch it, but hesitated as if it would hurt. A smile of relief broke out on his face a moment after as his other hand touched nothing but clean fur, albeit a bit chilly. He caressed it as if it was the first time he'd ever touched fur, and a cough of crying joy burst through his lips that had been closed in frustration. His ears bent forward, almost as if bowing, and his head shot up to look at the human mage before him holding the clump of tar in her hand without knowing exactly what to do with it.
"Um...here?" Cter offered the clump back to the monster, who took it without noticing that it had any weight at all. He laughed at it in a way that would've made her run away had she not known why. Side to side, up and down, round and round his ears went as he was overtaken by differing emotions. His aura went through many colorful transitions that had Cter step back a bit as to not be overwhelmed by it herself. She wasn't used to this rapid change in someone else's aura. It was equivalent to her shielding her eyes against a rainbow because it was too bright,.
"No!" the monster cried, grabbing a lunging hold of Cter's right arm and almost throwing himself off balance and on his feet. "P-Please," he begged as he turned his other arm around to expose a long streak of crusted tar running the entire length of his underarm. His mouth convulsed between exclaiming thanks and pleading some more, and his eyes followed along his ears and aura in softening and hardening independently.
It was definitely too much for Cter at that point.
However, as she grabbed the monster's other arm and focused inwards to summon her cold magic again him, his aura turned more silent than a whisper. She could be more precise in how her icy mist weaved between the strands of his fur, pushing those that weren't stuck in the aura down flat against the monster's arm so that they would be out of harms way as she went to pull the large piece of tar off. She still didn't know how to save the strands already stuck inside the tar though. That uncertainty she accidentally let slip from her aura and into the monster's.
"It's okay," he assured with the same stoic seriousness he had when he had cursed her out earlier. The same heavy meaning behind his words as when he told her to leave him alone.
What he said next made her pause, for how the monster said it both with his mouth and with his aura, made what he said previously like child's careless play.
"Thank you, human."
It was enough to almost unseat the starter-memory Cter had focused inside her soul. Almost enough for her to lose her connection with her grandma's soul inside of her sleeve. Her magic whirled underneath the crusted tar, causing a sheet of thin ice to form on the monster's arm. Cter immediately withdrew her hand from the tar, clutching her wrist with her right, naked hand. "Sorry!" she barked as if reprimanding herself in the same breath. Her hand pushed against her chest-covering where she'd made herself aware of her soul, instantly severing the connection by pushing it back into her and retracting her aura. "I didn't..."
The green monster rubbed his arm where Cter's cold had bitten him. It was obvious that he was in pain, but strangely he didn't let it be shown in his aura. The way his teeth grit as his ears folded down while he clutched at his arm were enough clues that spoke of his hurt. "It's fine," he said with his hurt arm's hand balling into a tensed fist. "It's fine." Each repeat had Cter holding her breath waiting for it to be the one where he'd shoot another glare over to her and scream at her to leave.
"Mage," the monster said instead after collecting himself and straining against his pain. "How quick can you freeze the tar?" The question hung between the two clear as day, but Cter wasn't sure if she should even answer it. The brief moment where the monster's anger flared up due to her clumsiness made her hesitate. She clutched her arm tighter against her chest. "Would it take long? Seconds? How many?"
His voice spoke the same way a child would asking its parents desperately when it could go over and meet a friend it hadn't seen in years. The monster almost fell down on his knees to ask again, however Cter answered him before he did so. "A second or two." She'd been speechless if he'd actually dropped down to beg, so that would've only worsened things. "A second, probably." Something inside her urged her to be more confident.
Was it more of Romrom's memories?
Or was it her actually being praised as a human mage?
"A second is perfect!" sang the green monster with a widened smile that was on the brink of bursting into uncontrollable laughter. "And then if it takes longer for you to make sure that it does not hurt then..." Something had the smile fading for a second though before he shook it back with a dismissive groan. "No," he said to himself. "I'm not subjecting my son to another hugless evening just because of some pain." With eyes narrowed with gravity he slowly let go of his crusted arm and presented it for the human mage to take again. "Hold my arm, human."
Cter took it in her naked hand carefully as to not prod where she had accidentally froze the fur.
"Here," the monster spoke after swallowing away some hesitation. He turned his arm so that the crust faced down. "If I begin to melt it with my magic, can you fold down my fur like you did and then freeze the tar off?" As he held his pleading eyes against Cter's she could feel his aura beginning to swell with a familiar anxiety. Of not being sure if it should be done or not. About the consequences that could arise.
But that it was worth the risk.
Cter's sleeve flourished again with her icy mist around her wrist and hand as she nodded. "I'll do my best," she promised with empathy that helped subdue the wiggling anxiety in the green monster's aura to a mere flustered flutter. "Although I can't promise that our magic won't touch since we'll be effecting the same object, I'm afraid." She turned her head slightly to the side. "I'm not...I'm not a good mage."
The anxiety began inside her aura instead. The anxiety she felt from the monster reminded her of the unopened scroll still sitting in her luggage. About her cheating at her final exam. About Kry's written words.
And about the outburst from the same monster that now begged her to help him.
"If it means that I can embrace my son properly before he goes to bed tonight then that's barely a risk to me." The green monster lifted his head slightly to peek between two of the houses on the opposite of the street. The river of monsters had dried up at that point, and the red-orange stretching rays of the sun were just as sparse on the street. "Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to hug him while his scales aren't cold from the night." A tear dropped from his eye and crashed against the underside of the crusted tar, rolling and pooling around the tip of a strained strand of fur. "You'll help me tomorrow too, human?"
Cter would have to help him firstly to begin with before she could say that she could do it again…
"Are you ready?" she asked.
More to herself than to the monster, to be honest.
As the monster nodded with absolute certainty that bleed into his aura like a gust of wind the choice was doubluy made for Cter too. He wrapped his fingers around the edge of the tar furthest up his arm and carefully dragged them down the entire length, leaving a shimmer akin to that hovering just above a road on a hot day.
Again, Cter let her cold magic bend the strands already free of the tar more away from it. Her soul sank briefly as she passed the frozen burn she inflicted, but the monster didn't react to her magic touching it again. Within the second she told the monster her magic had enveloped the tar's underside. She was careful with the tear, chilling it slower so that it wouldn't burst. It could've cracked the tar or sent a piece stinging into the monster if she wasn't careful about it.
She didn't let her magic touch the tar though as she could feel the monster's magical presence throughout the black gunk. It was stronger than how she felt him from his arm. Her magic was sandwiched between two sides of the monster. It's physical presence, and its magical. It was a strange feeling which had her pause for a moment. "Wait," she said with her brow furrowing in thought.
"Something wrong?" the monster inquired while removing his magic from the tar.
"No," Cter almost chastised. "Put your magic back."
The monster did so with some reservation, but the feeling came back to Cter.
It was...like the inversion of how she felt when she summoned her magic from her sleeve. It was her extension of her soul, her magic, being contained within the monster's magic and physical being. Like how her sleeve contained the given soul of her monster grandma.
Did that mean that Cter could…
A viscous drop robbed her of her thought and she stared down to the tar beginning to melt. "Sorry," she apologized. "I'm ready now." By the time the monster would decide if she was serious or not she would be ready.
At the bend of the monster's arm the tar began to soften until it slowly warped down towards the ground, exposing dark tips which Cter quickly froze and bent against the monster's arm. The tar had the viscosity of the serving of Seven Sowl Cter had eaten the day before, but with her freezing the warp where the strands were all free it began resembling a curved piece of thick leather. As more and more of the green monster's strands came loose with only their tips caked in frozen tar he began laughing.
It proved to make it more difficult for Cter to make sure that the strands came loose freely. Despite the shaking stands she still pressed on with following the melted tar and exposed fur with her magic to harden and bend apart.
"I can't believe it," said the monster with a choked gasp when his fingers wrapped around the edge of the tar at the base of his wrist. He lifted it off like a fruit peel and held it in front of him. "Like it had never touched me." The whisper he uttered was layered with sobs. With his ears quivering he looked down at his freed arm. "And these I just have to..." He held the peeled-off tar out for Cter to grab with her surprised hands. With his empty hand he began flicking off the tarred tips of his fur, each one flung away with a joyful giggle. "Look at them go!" They clinked against the cobble.
Cter wasn't sure what to do with the curled piece of removed tar she held in her hand. She knew enough to freeze it so that it wouldn't begin to stain her fingers and sleeve, but more than that she wasn't sure. All she could do was observe the laughing monster and his ears rotating around and around on his head.
"I can't believe it," he said again while stroking his cleaned arm with some heat to get his bent fur standing proud again, even if it was noticeably shorter than the rest of his arm. "Not even long-sleeved shirts I used to wear could protect my fur, and now?" He rubbed it against his watering tears, which only served to make them even more watery due to the fact that he could! "It's so soft."
"You're welcome," Cter thought was appropriate to say. "Sorry for before," she added.
A long stare hung between the human and the monster for a few, long seconds before the monster's head began shaking slowly. "No." Then faster. "No, no, no, no!" Until his laughter began again. "All forgiven!" the monster cheered. "Human, you have no idea how much this means to me! To my family!" Cter hesitated to agree seeing as the monster still had plenty of tarred spots all over him, but she still smiled back while resisting the urge to clutch the frozen clump of tar to her chest. "Oh, let me take that off your hands."
Cter was happy to.
"Is there a way for you to come by tomorrow again, human? Maybe a bit earlier to help with more spots?" The green monster reached into a stained pocket. After some rummaging he retrieved a small assortment of coins. "Here!" He handed them over with haste, pushing them into Cter's hands before she could close them. "As well as my thanks from the bottom of my soul!"
"T-thanks," Cter stuttered out without even knowing if the monster had under or overpaid her for what she had done. She'd have to ask Idyll about it later. "I-It w-was me a-apologizing though," she meekly argued, but not enough. To give him back the coins felt as if she would be saying that he was not good enough for her again. It was a thanks he gave to someone he felt at-least equal to, if not grateful judging by the amount he gave. "You should-dn't-"
The green monster interrupted the stutter with a firm hand on her shoulder. It was a father's hand, that she could feel immediately. A father's hand pushing down to make sure that what he was about to say was heard as clear as could be. "You did more than apologize, human." He gave her a reassuring squeeze similar to what her own father used to do. "Thank you."
She could only nod as an answer.
"Cter!" came a shout from down the street. "Cter!"
The human turned her head towards the shout in a way that revealed that it was her name. The green monster was keen to pick it up, and he squeezed the tense shoulder once again. "Thank you, Cter."
Even as Idyll's shouting became louder and louder the closer she ran it never became louder in the human mage's head that twilight hour than her name uttered only in respect from the green monster.
"Thank you, mage."