"Isn't it strange that I was the one getting a job yesterday but you've brought more money back home than I have?"

The joke was met with an unsure smile and an equally unsure shrug. "It was..." Cter shook her head over the rice porridge topped with a pan-fried egg like a hat of sorts. The yolk of the egg broke from the impact from Idyll seating herself on the other side of the table. With a finger, Cter caught the escaping yolk before it could touch the porridge. "Something," she finished before sucking it off her finger.

"That it was," agreed Idyll with an absentminded stir of her own bowl of rice porridge. Her egg vanished quickly into the rice porridge, staining it to a vaguely beige color. "It seemed like you managed to apologize to him though." She took a spoonful towards her mouth to blow on it. The gust hit Cter gently in the face from across the table. "What did you do, pray tell?" She chomped down on the porridge almost as if it was about to escape her spoon had she not done it. "He acted like he was indebted to you."

Cter hadn't told her roommonster what had happened. Mostly due to how tired she realized that she was despite sleeping in for almost half the day, but also due to her mind having mulled on that strange inverted feeling she felt as her magic operated between the green monster's physical and magical being. Even the morning after she sat tapping her spoon onto the yolk like it was a pimple not yet ripe enough to be popped.

Luckily the mental image did not manifest itself otherwise she would have lost her appetite.

"Hello?"

Cter looked up from her bowl of porridge to Idyll holding out her long, blue arms to her sides. The handle of the spoon in her mouth was raised up like a question mark.

"I helped him freeze loose some tar that was stuck on his fur," Cter began explaining as she carved a piece of egg and some porridge to eat. "The piece he held that you saw stretched the entire length of his left underarm." Her blown gust to cool her spoon didn't reach over the table. If she had her sleeve on she could've just cooled it that way, but using magic on something so small wasn't really a good use for it, was it?

Wait…

The echoing slap that followed did little to help with Idyll's confusion as Cter threw her palm against her forehead.

The reason Cter got yelled at was that she refused to use magic on something she felt was below her, dammit! She gave it some thought though and concluded that there was a different between refusing her magic towards someone and refusing her magic against something, luckily. She'd have to remember that difference.

"The tar piece he held in his hands didn't look very frozen to me," Idyll commented after another spoon of porridge. "Looked more to have been warped by heat. I've helped my dad with tarring our barn back home so I at least know a bit of how that monster felt. Luckily I have scales on me which tar does not really grip on." She tapped her hair. "I got a couple of drops in my hair once and that was an immense pain to get out. Having an entire piece across his arm I can't imagine how much it would hurt to get rid off." The wooden handle bent down between two of her uneven teeth. "No wonder he paid you," Idyll spoke into the middle distance before exhaling in contemplation.

It wasn't a lot the green monster paid Cter in terms of monetary value. Maybe a meal or so. However, it was a proof of concept that she could make some money from her magic. With that she also knew how to not approach a monster in need of some help, which was useful. The green monster wanted her to return as well, which meant another handful of coins from him, as he enticed. She'd have to find more monsters in need of help though for rent and such, and more regulars too.

Maybe she could ask that green monster for some pointers?

"Are you gonna go out and look for more magic to do, Cter?" Idyll asked as if she could read the human's mind. "I'm asking because I still got a couple of hours before I'm to be at Krygino's tavern, so perhaps we could walk together and look? Might ease some of the monster's hesitation if they see you, a human mage, walking around with just a commoner monster?"

Idyll's suggestion could've just as surely backfired so that the monsters saw a human mage and her pet instead, according to what the green monster said in his initial anger. Cter was torn between hiding her sleeve inside her cloak as to not rouse suspicion or have it outside to advertise that she was a human mage.

She pondered it while standing in front of the mirror in her room, moving her left arm in and out of her cloak's embrace with her brow furrowing lower with each swing of her arm. It almost ended up being a middle-ground between the two choices when Idyll startled her roomhuman by knocking on Cter's door. Her flinch made her sleeve tie itself up with her cloak, and while she shouted "I'm done in a couple of seconds!" it took her half a minute to untangle her sleeve from her cloak.

Cter could almost hear Romrom giggle at her from inside her sleeve.

The morning rush outside Idyll and Cter's apartment had begun in earnest as they descended the stairs to become drops in the monster river flowing with speed down their street. To not lose the other they gently connected their auras together just enough so that they were aware of where the other one was among the myriad of auras in the river. In a pinch Cter could've just made hers bigger and Idyll would've found her, but while they were walking and talking it was best to hide that Cter was a human.

If she was to live in the city she couldn't really act like she owned the place. That would've brought with it the wrong kind of attention.

Like the pink-tinted spider arm grabbing Cter by her cloak's collar and dragging her out of the river with a harsh choke. The few coins Cter had packed in her pockets jiggled audibly, prompting a pleased chuckle. "Ahuhuhu~" the large spider sang as he dragged his found prey over to his butcher stand. "Welcome, dear customer."

"Cter!"

The shout had the spider turning around, and the sight of another eager customer practically throwing herself to buy from him had his smile widen and his five eyes narrow with joy. "And you too, of course! Fuhuhuhu~ I have some fantastic spider-steaks available."

Cter's disgusted swallow got stuck in her clamped-together throat, and she coughed it back up, doubling the feeling of disgust. She was let go a few seconds later, and Idyll helped her up on her coughing feet.

"Oh!" the spider piqued with two arms clasped together and his other four brushing his stained butcher's apron. It was very clear that the red drops on the fabric were painted on though and not actually blood. "A human!" He bowed with his three left arms on his torso and his three right arms presenting his shop. "An extra soulful welcome to you then so that..."

Cter and Idyll managed to the fringe of the walking monsters before Cter was again grabbed by her cloak's collar. Again she was dragged back to the stand with her hand desperately outstretched towards her friend who again angrily followed with gritted teeth and hair casting her eyes into an intimidating shadow. "Oi!" she called towards the singing spider. "Let her go!"

The spider obliged by loosening his grip as he rounded towards his wooden counter strewn with various-sized meats.

That were moving…

Very much moving, and very much alive.

Cter's head hit Idyll square on her muzzle as the human craned her neck back from a few strips of black bacon sprouting eyes towards her. When she turned to apologize she was spun back by the spider monster's arm again.

She was starting to become dizzy.

"You must be from Hjearta," the spider correctly guessed while rummaging underneath his counter with his lowest pair of arms. "I can tell because of the fair tone to your skin. Say, what do you regularly eat in Hjearta? What type of meat is customary there? How is it shaped? How much does it cost? What is the most expensive meat? How much does it cost?"

The questions were thrown at Cter so fast she almost stumbled into Idyll while she was rubbing the impact away from her muzzle.

"Do tell, human," said the spider as his head fell down on two of his flattened palms held upright by his elbows. His other ones were still doing something strange underneath his counter. "I'm so very eager to learn about your meaty culture."

"We've just had breakfast," informed Idyll while baring her teeth again. "Thank. You." She took Cter's hand in hers steadily and pushed the human behind her back for safety out of the spider's reach. "Good day, sir!"

The spider's rather slim form spun around from Idyll swatting its hand away.

"I said good day, sir," she again informed with her tone the complete opposite of the friendly demeanor her words would imply. "You reach out for us again and you'll be selling fresh arms too." She corrected that incongruity rather quickly when she saw the spider butcher move just the slightest.

Cter wasn't sure if she actually felt safe behind Idyll with how the otherwise-combed-and-neat hair down her neck stood up like a porcupine's quills as her snarl traveled through her entire body. Cter's own hair stood up as well as the intent leaked out into Idyll's aura.

She could almost smell it…

A small yelp escaped through her thinned lips when Idyll turned around to say that the two of them were leaving. The speed she turned her head with didn't allow her snarl to fade back into a neutral frown, and instead it met Cter with an arguably-more intimidating expression as it wasn't clear if it was forming or fading away in the brief moment she saw it before her mind decided which of the fight or flight instincts it would employ.

The uncertainty was furthered when, despite Idyll's very-well-articulated threat, the spider butcher reached out for the human with a curious hand. It was when Cter first felt Idyll's magic, and why it wasn't really suited to cooking.

Splinters and spiders exploded into the air as Idyll's right arm whirled around glowing with orange magic, slamming into the butcher stand with enough force to lift up Cter's robe and hair. A returning choking sensation returned to her briefly as her robe's hood caught the wind from Idyll's smash. A few pieces of both wood and spiders were caught in her hood as well, and she again startled a yelp as they scurried out of it and repelled from her shoulder carrying the splintered pieces.

"Good. Day. Sir!"

The butcher stand wasn't as much caved in where Idyll had hit it as much as it was ridged. She had punched so hard that her hand went through it like a wide knife through hot butter. The sign on its front wasn't advertising 'Fine cuts, chosen meats' after her show of force, but rather 'Fi ts, cho ts'.

"You're a mage!"

The spider butcher was strangely unfazed with his demolished stand creaking from only being held together by the banner fitted between the two wooden bars raised vertically on the counter's corners. With arms wide he danced underneath Idyll's outstretched arm with a twirl. He pointed towards Cter's left arm which had become visible and rested outside of her robe with her sleeve on full display. He again dodged Idyll's attempt to stop him by jumping up and perching on her thick lizard arm.

The audacity of his action had Idyll freezing out of pure confusion.

"Say, you wouldn't be adept in fire magic, would you?" the spider asked with his cheek resting on his fist and the rest of his arms motioning in accordance with his question. "I know Xoff and Hjearta like to cook their meats with different temperatures, and I– Hey!"

More than a few eyebrows were raised from the monster river, with curious and probing questions flared up in the collective aura at the large lizard monster jumping around to try and shake off a spider monster hanging on for his life on her arm. Her bouncing hair reminded Cter of seaweed underneath waves.

"Get off me, dammit! What are you doing? Strings! Are you serious?"

Since the spider was struggling as much as Idyll was her orange magic didn't have any effect in getting him off. If anything the addition of an orange color to the blurred blue and pink of the two struggling monsters had Cter wincing a bit. When the shooting eyebrows shot over to her, as clearly no answer would be gained from the mess of monsters, Cter decided to pull her hood over her head.

She poked around for any other spiders or splinters first, of course.

The two monsters tired the other one out after a couple of minutes of violent flailing. Once Idyll's magic faded the spider butcher took his chance and repelled off. He landed next to Cter with one hand clutching his head. "So, fire magic?" he inquired after collecting himself for a moment. "Can you show me?"

Cter glanced over the spider's top shoulder. "Um..." Idyll was clutching her head while stumbling from having spun around so much. "Excuse me." She made sure to fluff her aura with her intent of helping her friend so that the spider wouldn't react the same as the green monster did at first. As she passed him she only heard a tired sigh and not an infuriated huff which gave her relief.

"You alright, Idyll?" Cter put her hand carefully on Idyll so that she wouldn't swing with her orange magic out of reflex. The blue lizard reacted by clutching the bend of her arm where her orange magic had sprouted from and where the spider had perched on. Cter in turn summoned her own and began enveloping her hand with a soothing cold which she brought to her friend's arm. "Tell me if it's too cold."

"That's even better!" was shouted behind Cter's lifted-up hood.

"Shut up!" was shouted back in front of Cter's lifted-up hood.

"Ice magic!" cheered the spider butcher as he entered from the left of Cter's obscured vision. He paid no mind to the orange-flicking glare from Idyll that pierced him through and through despite his overly curious wander and inspection of Cter's conjured, chilling cloud without as much as a flinch. "Yes, yes," he muttered with one hand rubbing his chin and the rest rubbing together eagerly. The dry friction sounded more wispy than the faint howling from Cter's magic.

Idyll took the chance to swat at the spider again with her free hand, but he again just jumped up on it to perch without any effort. Idyll's head and hair fell down in defeat, and her weary sigh turned groan lifted up a handful of her long, bright strands which caught some magical snowflakes as they were gently fluttering down.

Cter extended her aura in secret so that the snowflakes wouldn't melt before Idyll would realize. They looked good in her hair., and reminded Cter of when the first snow would stick on the hanging moss in the forest next to her village.

The flakes of magical snow were unfortunately blown off a second after by Idyll's muttered "Dammit...". They were caught by the spider butcher leaning down and catching them on one finger which he brought up to his mouth and licked off.

The human mage was unsure how to react to that. Was there a monster tradition of consuming another one's magic?

It was so at Soul's School during those post-exam parties, but Cter had learned enough from the green monster's rant to be hesitant to assume that the monsters in Soul's School acted the same as they did in Monster Country.

Especially that one time after the Human History course when Cter was at that jester's party where a new School Soulay was to be crowned to the human or monster which could stomach the most spiced wine.

Oh and the spices which were served...

"It's a bit too cold now," Idyll commented as the memory of that party ran up Cter's spine and mixed itself in her sleeve. "Too cold. Too cold!"

"Oh! Sorry!"

Hastily, Cter wrapped her robe around her friend's arm among hurried and slurred apologies. Her embarrassment had her cheeks blossoming and making Idyll briefly jealous of the warmth irradiating out of her reach.

"Amazing, human!" said the spider butcher with double applause from its pink and ecstatic hands. Only its middle, vertical eye was opened with its other closed due to its wide smile. Otherwise it'd poked itself blind with its upwards-pointing fangs. "Teach me your ice magic, please!"

Idyll and Cter traded glances for a second. "Jump down from my arm first," Idyll commanded with her bared teeth slicked with ire. "Jump down," she clarified harsher to be more than clear. "Not with your string."

It brought a slight pause to the spider butcher which had Idyll hardening her furrow and jutting her sharpened muzzle against the uninvited monster on her arm. With a sigh devoid of respect he jumped down, landing with a slight jiggle as his sigh finished. "Happy?" he more blamed than asked the lizard monster clenching both her hands with an orange tint glowing around her tightened fingers.

"I can't teach you my magic," Cter decided to tell before Idyll had enough, again. She tapped her sleeve. "It's all in here only for me."

The spider didn't seem to buy it. "Cooperative Connection, yes I know." It surprised Cter that he knew of it. Did he just know about the name? If he knew what it was exactly he'd not asked for Cter to teach him since he'd known that it'd be impossible. "You gotta give something back though, right? For balance?"

Alright, so he didn't know exactly. That much was clear.

"You talking about the Reaction-Action?" Cter prodded to hear if he knew about that to begin with. She expected her friend to chime in and make another attempt for the two to leave, but strangely enough she had this curious softness in her eyes and aura that was similar to the one the spider had. Their auras were completely separated though despite them sharing the same curiosity. Idyll was actively dismissive of the spider butcher's emotion, which shouldn't really have come as a surprise to Cter due to what had preceded.

It was the first time Cter had sensed an active refusal from a monster though. Even the green monster made sure his disdain flowed together with Cter's aura, and he was enraged and appalled throughout the depth of his soul. The only reason Cter could fathom in the brief moment allowed to her between asking her question and for the spider butcher to formulate an answer was that Idyll wasn't angry enough to put in the effort to show that she was angry.

A twilight ire.

Between the raging fire of the sun-licked red anger and the cold and eerie turned shoulder of the moon. Cter was tempted to sneak her own aura between the two monsters' to either make a bridge or just feel how it would be to have her aura between the oil and water layers of not-enough-angry-to-show-it-but-enough-to-make-a-stand-against-it and blatantly oblivious to the disconnected isolation that could only exist through a connection to begin with.

Damn…

Cter should've been asking the monsters about monster stuff instead of trying to clarify human stuff!

"I know you human mages use monster souls for your magic, and that you do so to show how well our two races can cooperate. That's why we live in this golden age of discovery and plenty. You humans get the benefit of understanding magic and more about yourself, and us monsters get the benefit of this improved magic being used for our gain since the only way for human magic to actually work is for humans to form strong bonds with monsters and help them out."

Cter wasn't exactly sure about the purpose of the spider butcher's many air-quotations with his hands which he ran out of halfway through his answer. The way he none-too-subtly leaned his pink head towards her though with his final emphasized words gave her a bit of context which she could apply to his bouncing fingers.

It had her brow lowering. "You do know and have seen what human magic has done, right?" And her right hand thrown over yonder. "Improved agriculture, for an example. Even magical crops! Golden Flowers are the biggest export from Monster Country." That was a bit of a cherry-picked truth though since humans had pretty much gotten addicted to the tea. "You probably even live comfortable inside a human-helped house."

If Cter could she'd conjured up a box to stand on for her speech. Human magic wasn't a monster's personal sacrifice for the greater good like this monster was implying. A human wouldn't even be able to do any magic at all if the monster wasn't more than willing to inscribe their own soul into a sleeve. It wasn't offering up, it was copying! It was the monster putting their hopes, dreams, faith, everything, into the human.

It was called the Cooperative Connection for a reason, dammit!

"And that's how humans get their magic?" asked...Idyll?

Cter turned her perplexed head over to her friend looking borderline bashful over having asked. Like she regretted that she had asked this obvious question that should've been absolutely clear for her as it was just explained to her. Cter just nodded though. "Yes, that's how I get my magic."

Her magic?

Cter caught herself a bit off-guard by attributing it to herself. When she raised her hand surrounded by a gentle blizzard that had the flakes in the shape of the snow she remembered from winters past it didn't feel like her grandma. It felt as if it was hers. When did this shift happen? Was it with the green monster?

When she made the decision on her own instead of by Romrom's whim and guiding memories?

Her blizzard made a flurry around her fingers as her soul was flushed with the realization.

She'd made the magic her own!

It made her scoff as the confident resentment she and the other humans shared when they were taught that the moment their magic would become their own wouldn't be a moment of great realization, only afterwards when someone else would bring it up. Another proof of the strength of the Cooperative Connection.

That the human would come to take for granted the part of their life their magic would come to hold the same as they would the monster that would give it to them.

Unfortunately it was quite a biased argument that wouldn't have convinced any hesitations from those that doubted human magic, from both races. Too personal an anecdote, which was the entire point of it all.

The dazzling display of Cter's blizzard dancing like a vortex up her sleeve to provoke the glowing lines shining icy-blue to then be sucked into her balled fist which she slowly opened to reveal an ice cube with flakes of snow suspended in otherwise-crystal-clear ice was enough for the spider butcher to return his jaw from being stroked in devious dubiety to hitting the ground again.

It was purely a display though. Cter was very familiar with ice that was clear enough for her to see through from her village's lake during winter. It was how she knew ice to be, so it was how she could form it. Had she'd done fire at that point it'd still had the crackling of wood inside it. The way her sleeve's lines drained too was just her focusing on her hand.

Still, it was enough to have the spider butcher timidly reach out for the ice cube with an enthralled look on his face. "C-Can I?"

Of course he could.

Cter had won the argument already. He could have it as a consolation prize.

The spider butcher first clutched the ice cube in his hand like a prized possession, but opened his hand slightly to only provide some shadow for it. "H-How long do you think it would go without melting?" he wondered with wonder.

That...Cter didn't know. It was just for show. "I can't tell you," she admitted while she scratched her temple and looked down. "Sorry."

It wiped some of the radiating happiness from the spider monster's face, turning it slightly purple instead of pink as a shadow took it over. If he wanted the ice cube to not melt perhaps it was for the better that his face wasn't radiating?

Cter didn't say that. It didn't really strike her as proper to mention it at that point. "Why?" she asked though. "I can make you another one if you want? I can try and feel for how long it'll go without melting?" It wasn't a big sacrifice for Cter to make in that situation. Plus, it'd give her more knowledge of her own magic. Good to know how long one's magic lasts, after all.

"I'd like that, yes," nodded the monster quickly with another hand opened. He hid his four other arms behind his back as a sign of goodwill that he wouldn't ask for any more.

As Cter focused her magic into her hand again she made herself more aware of the flow from her soul. Of how much of herself was put into the ice cube. It wasn't much, but once it was finished she felt an answer run up from her sleeve, through her soul, and up to her mouth. "An hour or so," she said not from her mind, but from her soul. "That's what I feel."

Not think.

"Enough for a small delivery of meat."

Of spiders?

"Could...could I ask you to come back later to make some more ice?" the spider proposed friendly. "I'll pay you if you can make more, maybe larger cubes?"

Yes, actually. "Sure." And if he wasn't gonna bring up Idyll smashing his stall into pieces then Cter wouldn't either. The spider butcher held out his middle right hand for Cter to take, which she did. "I'm Cter," she introduced very business-like, at least to her own ears.

"I look forward to your magic again, Cter." The spider motioned behind him towards his stall which didn't have as much as a dent in it.

…What?

Ten seconds of Cter staring with her mouth agape, with Idyll joining in with a startled flinch that send her healed arm diagonally across her face and her eyes bulged wide open, the spider butcher began to try and wiggle his fingers out of the fair skin that didn't seem to want to let go. The alien feeling brought Cter back to reality, and she opened her hand while still keeping it hovering in the air while she continued to process how in the world the butcher stall wasn't in pieces.

Wait.

No, it was!

It was in pieces!

Held together by the spiders!

Was it already broken before Idyll broke it again? How many times had it happened before? Was it a common occurrence?

So many questions Cter had rattling inside her mind, but when she came to it again the only thing she saw was the top of the banner being carried by an army of spiders into an alleyway. Where the stall had stood before was just an empty space with only a small splinter left lying discarded.

Idyll stooped her way up on her feet and meandered over to the splinter almost slipping off the curvature of the cobblestone she walked over. She bent over and picked the splinter up before turning to her human friend with the splinter held up like a question mark.

Cter had no idea either though so…

Even less when a lonesome spider skittered out of the alleyway towards Idyll whom it climbed up her leg, torso, out her arm, and finally up to the splinter she held between two of her thick claws. She released the splinter which the spider caught before it repelled down from the tip of her claw. She followed it with her eyes as it scurried back into the alleyway, disappearing up a storm drain on the wall of a yellow house in the vague shape of a round fish.

Idyll's neck moved slowly as if transformed into stone back towards Cter.

"You'll ask him about this tomorrow, right?"

Cter nodded absently as her confusion was still swirling inside of her head.

"Yeah, yeah I should."