"How are you enjoying autumn here in Jarasevo? You've been looking at the park trees for a while now, human."

Cter shifted her eyes from the wholly green leaves swaying in the fresh breeze passing by. The shadows of the thin, rounded shapes danced on the bear monster's face, blending and emerging from its black mask into its yellow fur in the shape of a swirling pattern on its face. "It's less colorful than back home," she answered while shrugging her right shoulder which wasn't busy with holding the pieces of the Time's Square clock in a purple stasis magic while the bear monster tinkered with a cogwheel. "In Hjearta the leaves shift from green to yellow, orange, and finally red before they fall off and coat the ground."

"Oh!" replied the bear with its one ear perking up from the middle of its head like a rooster's comb. "So that's why you humans call autumn fall." He nodded to himself, moving the cogwheel up and down with his nod to keep his eye-piece on it. A variable magnifying glass that he could wear on his eye. Intricate glass-work that was impossible to achieve without magic. Cter knew about some human mages taking up trades and using their magic to make artisan crafts unrivaled in comparison. "Do you call it spring because the flowers pop out of their bulbs too?"

The bear monster pointed over towards the tool box that Cter kept out of the monster's reach so that he wouldn't hit it accidentally, and she brought it closer to him. He thanked her through his aura, which swelled inside her like a flustered beat of her heart. "I'm not sure about Xoff, but in my country it's more like springing out and welcoming back life," said the mage while moving around the cogwheels the bear pointed at to see if they were placed right. "Spring is a synonym for run in my country." She felt some of the cogwheels get stuck and scrape with some damming friction which she let the bear monster be aware of as she opened her aura for him.

"I see," the monster acknowledged with his tongue peeking out from two of his long fangs. His nose scrunched like a piece of paper as he leaned forward with his cylindrical eye-piece. "Truth be told, hearing that the leaves fall from the trees sounds dull to me. I knew some of the trees in the Royal Garden do so, but that I assumed was because they were out of their environment." Cter let him move around the clock pieces through her magic as he saw fit. She'd figured out how to distance herself enough from her own magic and let it act basically on its own to allow the monsters to take it into their own hands partially. Akin to sitting by a pot to make sure that it doesn't boil over, but reading a newspaper or a book while the bubbles of the boiling stew take care of the stirring.

First time she did it however it felt like an arm was bursting through her chest and taking over her sleeved one. It was a...strange experience, and one that she had to have so that she could do it again, but properly. Took a week and a half before the feeling had washed off her though, so overtaking did it feel. It had her remembering a warning that Professor Leraull had given in one of his lecture about humans losing themselves to magic, and in her case it was as if one step worse than that...

"Is that a cold breeze or was it you?" inquired the bear monster with a quizzical eyebrow peeking up from behind his eye-piece. His eye through the magnification was like a sunflower with its large, dark center surrounded by solid yellow. The fur on him stood straight up like wheat just before harvest.

The cold shiver? Yes, that was Cter remembering the phantom hand and arm bursting through her soul and more. "Sorry, my mind wandered off." With a slight shake of her head she managed to push the cold down her spine again. Even a slight wander of her mind which provoked a memory or an emotion was enough for a monster to feel it if they were Cooperatively Connected. That had been one of the first things she had noticed when a monster asked if she was coming onto her when Cter began thinking of peaches while looking over to a skeleton fruit vendor juggling three to impress some monster children.

"No problem," smiled the bear monster, "just wondered where the feeling came from and if I wanted to get my jacket." He declined as Cter reached out with her aura to it, giving it a faint purple haze to its well-worn fabric before letting it go as if it was waking up in its bed and immediately deciding to go back to sleep.

Cter didn't really have that luxury nowadays with her busy schedule. Not even during the last year in Soul School did she have to use a journal to keep tab on where and to who she was to go to during the day, but with her mage business having circled around Lower Jarasevo a full lap she was forced to not only get herself a map. but also a journal so that she could plan her day out and how to most efficiently walk to her next customer.

The bear monster she was in the process of helping to get the Time's Square clock working again wasn't on the day's list, but with weight of the coin purse he offered for her help it was worth enough for Cter to make the detour across a monster-couple of corners to it. She'd not been there many times since when she arrived in the city. It was at the bottom of the hill up towards Jarasevo Castle, and the human mage who was flat-out rejected from said castle didn't really find many good reasons to visit the place.

The coin purse which was tugging her robe's shoulder down by sitting in her pocket, before she applied to it some of the bear monster's stasis magic he lent, to her was again a good enough reason. She had not done stasis magic before as well, so it was widening her familiarity with the common types of magic used by the monsters. Was she to describe it she'd say that it tickled in her soul and heart in the same way when she was at the apex of a jump while looking down a long cliff while under the effects of vertigo. Her feet too experienced ticklish anxiety before she got it under control.

"The trees are magical."

Cter hummed in response "Hm?" and craned her head back as the bear monster swiped a pointy tool right in front of her nose while only looking through his eye-piece. He pointed over to the green trees with the rounded leaves planted in rows on the circumference of Time's Square.

"That's why they don't shed their leaves like your human trees. They stay on around the year. Green all days. Some say King Asgore comes down in disguise to tend to them, but most likely it's actually one of the Monster Mages in an over-sized Royal Robe if you ask me." He missed his nose trying to tap it with a cheeky smile. On the third try he managed, albeit slightly startled and bending down his long muzzle into a frown which elongated his mouth's. "I suspect that now that I've felt how your human aura feels more up-close, human." His wink was like two doors rapidly closing after letting in a bright morning sun through his eye-piece, and Cter was hesitant to ask what he meant by that exactly. She stepped back her aura some until she could figure out exactly on her own. "With that knowledge I am positive that it is one of the Human Mages. If I'm gonna guess I'm gonna say Sund."

"Sund?" Cter responded through reflex, causing a handle and a cog to arrange themselves into an exclamation point. She wasn't gonna bend one just to have it be a question mark, as that would have made the Time's Square clock be a couple of minutes ahead or behind depending on which way the handle was bent.

"Yes, Sund," repeated the bear monster in playful defense. He plucked a cogwheel the size of his paw from the floating pile of unchecked ones and gave it a spin so that it rotated freely in the air. Cter took focus away from it lest she became dizzy. "I know that Kry has Asgore's magic with him, but I can't really say that he has green fingers. Sund though I can see taking care of the flowers with how much time he apparently spends in the Royal Gardens." When the cat monster stopped the wheel with his paws his ears again perked up, and another exclamation point with an hour handle and a small cogwheel arranged their purple-glowing selves above his furry head. "Or down here tending to these trees, I suppose."

It looked wholesomely funny to Cter, who snickered with the back of her right hand pushed against her lips to hide it.

"He's also from Hjearta," revealed the bear monster with the exclamation point following the turn of his widened eyes. "That must be it!" It bounced gently as he tilted his head over his pants' straps pushing down on his shoulder. "Maybe he's trying to make the trees here change colors too? Hopefully not fall off as well." With a shrug that sent the hour handle and cogwheel back to the unchecked pile hovering a paw away from his forehead he returned to the spinning cogwheel he just stopped and bored through one of its holes with a claw. "That'd be dull." Then he spun it more gently over to the checked-but-not-yet-determined-exactly-where-it-should-go pile.

It was worryingy intricate pile which Cter wouldn't be able to differentiate from the unchecked pile at a glance or even a longer look. The bear monster's confidence was enough for him to just haphazardly spin cogwheels into the pile without much more thought to it. Must've been because Cter was there.

Had he done it before though? Shared his magic with a human mage? His rather-leisurely way he commanded his magic through Cter's magic did have her ponder.

"No, I've not."

Pondered loudly enough for the monster to hear it through her magic, which again spoke of him being confident and used to it.

"Well, I tell a lie," he recalled with his one ear bending backwards, "at least a bit." He made an indecisive gesture with his left paw as his right was busy with a spring coiled the wrong way. "I was here doing a similar repair when the court of Xoff visited from Noitaidarr Castle. The human king was standing a step or so to the left of you were standing, actually."

Cter looked down at the white marble square the monster was pointing at. She didn't know why, but she took a step onto it. There was no surge of kingly divinity filling her with determination though. There was a cold breeze hitting the removed clock face resting on the bear monster's magically propped ladder and flowing up her autumn robe and chilling her to the bone, and the bear monster to his soul via proxy.

Finally he asked for Cter to get his jacket for him.

She did so by squatting down and picking it up with her hand instead of his magic, again without really knowing why she did so. Perhaps she didn't want to cause political tension by using magic where a human king stood before? Even if it wasn't her own king?

The lesson about human mage politics in regards to the human courts was a lesson she...accidentally...slept through.

"Working with an audience I can, well, work with, but a Royal Audience?" The bear monster blew his cheeks, fluttering them.

"Is it really an audience if it just passing by and not really stopping and taking an interest?"

The human's guess had the monster's brow sinking and halting him buttoning the top button on his orange-tinted jacket. "How did you know?" Like how Cter had receded her aura the bear did the same with his.

The suspicion quickly dissipated as Cter explained it. "It's been what a lot of monsters I've been helping have said. With me borrowing their magic or them using my magic to enhance theirs it's always had the crowd catching the sharper scent, so to speak." She took the opportunity to button her own top button as well, punctuating her explanation with it plopping in place. "And speaking with a louder voice in your aura, to boot."

An accepting, but not-pleased hum emerged from the bear's held-together lip. "So anyways," he continued after clearing his throat of the cold and using his claw to see how two small gears spun in correlation to the other, "one of the Xoff king's mages offered to help. She could use a similar magic to mine and we worked together to get the clock working in time with King Asgore finishing the tour of the trees here. So while I've not shared my magic exactly per say, I've used it in conjunction with a human mage before."

Was that so?

"Come to think of it..." The bear monster scratched his furry chin with the hour handle using magic while scratching a claw on his head and having his other hand in his pocket. "I don't think I've seen any human mages sharing magic before."

Was that so too?

"Not heard of it either," he jested with a chuckle while pointing to his one ear bowing respectfully.

He stopped when it bent a bit too much for Cter to be comfortable with it.

"Were you taught that in Soul's School? To share magic?"

Not extending further than the importance about the Cooperative Connection and how to inscribe it, no. "I figured it out myself," answered Cter with a glance towards her sleeved arm covered in purple stasis magic.

"Guess that's your magic then."

Yeah, actually. "Guess so."

"I'm surprised the Monster Mages haven't approached you already with an offer for an apprenticeship," shrugged the cat monster with his shoulders and single ear. He adjusted the magnification on his eye-piece as he looked up towards the castle. "Guard change," he noticed after leaning forward a bit. "Good, means we don't have to stress about this repair if the change is happening now and not earlier." He adjusted back the magnification as he turned towards Cter. "Didn't see any of the Monster Mages on their way down, unfortunately."

Cter chuckled at the bear monster's joke even if she didn't really think of it as funny as he did. The disparity she hid in her aura so that he wouldn't feel it.

"They already know that you're here and doing your magic, so why aren't they observing the use of it?" The brass eye-piece was buried underneath a deep fold of the bear monster's brow. "I mean, they have to feel what we're doing right now. There's no doubt about that!" With a sweeping gesture in front of him the pieces hovering in the different piles began moving into one big one. With a quiet yelp Cter made a conscious effort to have all the different pieces move back to their respective pile. Sorting them out would be neigh impossible even with the bear monster telling which was which. Only so many ways he could describe a cogwheel before it was lost to Cter.

"And I heard about you and your services through word of mouth, Cter. There's really no way the Monster Mages are at least aware of you operating in the city."

"I sent in some paperwork about registering it as a business," said Cter mostly to give the monster more fuel for his emotions. It was one she hadn't felt before and was keen on both observing and feel at how it would whirl inside her. "I met a couple of humans who were registering their own business as well." To Cter's surprise she wasn't really surprised seeing the humans there at the government office shaped quite formally for being a monster one. While she did nod and exchanged pleasantries and displayed some magic for them to pass the time while they were all waiting, she didn't really push that it was a special event to see another human in the Monster Capital.

It was only after her helping a slime monster and giving it some of her fire magic to finish up a necklace the slime was working on that needed some exact tempering that Cter realized why she wasn't surprised with seeing another human. With how much she had been treated the same as a monster in the city with the help of her magic, those worries from her learning her magic had been eroded away over the year and a half she had spent in the city.

A year and a half…

"It's bothering me for some reason." The bear monster perched down from the top step of his ladder with his fist underneath his chin. "Maybe it's because we're sharing magic that I feel that you've been done wrong, but still, it's strange that they're letting a human mage operate alone with a magic that's incredibly helpful without at least visiting once and checking up on you." He shook his head. "You've arguably done more for us than they have during the time you've been here. The Monster Mages have never just wandered around the city offering their help and magic."

And even so the green monster defended them when Cter first walked up to him thinking his problems were trivial for her? That didn't make sense to her. There had to be other reasons for them not involving themselves directly.

She had cultivated her own brand of magic all on her own and used it to better the lives in Jarasevo. What the Monster Mages did had to be more important than Cter could ever understand for them not to even notice her stepping into the role as a human mage, brushing that aside without approaching and offering to cultivate it further.

It brought some fear to her aura as she tried to imagine the towering level of magic they knew that even hers was inconsequential to. Even with her having figured out this type of magic she was not worthy of further notice than their initial one. It really was as staggering a height as the tallest tower that stood proud as it sliced through the clouds and bringing the cold light of late autumn down on its reflective walls.

At the same time it brought her some calm too. A rather strange calm that reverberated so strongly inside her that she almost lost track of the stasis magic.

If she couldn't even imagine the difference in magical prowess, then why should she worry about reaching it? A mountain which wall curved outwards that she had decided to climb. The clouds that hid that cliff face had dispersed before she'd decided to attempt to climb it again, luckily. Now that she stood below in and looked up at it again the worry about how she would ever climb it drained away from her. It faded away from inside her head like blood surging to her ears and out her toes into the tiles where Xoff's human king had stood before.

Those clouds that cleared up also revealed how far up she'd already climbed. Not without effort, but with effort that she have managed. With effort and help from the monsters she'd met. Monsters that smiled at her when she walked by and invited her and Idyll into their homes to thank Cter from the bottom of their souls. Humans too, albeit more seldom. Same with them though the fewer times it happened. From the bottom of their hearts they thanked Cter.

She had carved and molded a life as a human mage in Jarasevo without an apprenticeship. Who could say that they'd done that? All on her own with the help from the monsters she had formed a connection with outside of her sleeve. From Romrom to Idyll to the bear monster she was helping fixing the Jarasevo Time's Square clock.

She was content with her life.

And that was fine.

She would have to buy some expensive wine to break the news to Idyll that she wouldn't be joining her in returning to the castle. Cter would still do anything in her power to help her friend if Idyll still wanted to.

Of course she would.

Idyll had even hinted before that she was hitting her own plateau when it came to her cooking. Perhaps she was hiding it so that Cter wouldn't be discouraged? Well, that would be easy enough to loosen up with some wine, wouldn't it?

"Could I ask you to try and have the clock tick again?" asked the cat monster after having focused quietly on assembling the many pieces back into the hollow inner-workings of the Jarasevo Time's Square Clock. "Any friction?"

Just some minor between a couple of cogs and springs which Cter relayed and which the bear monster quickly identified and rearranged to act more smoothly. He again asked Cter to test if the clock could tick, and she did so through his magic.

It felt like nothing.

Like gliding on her bare stomach on the village's lake's ice after warming up in the sauna on the beach. Same cold too with the wind picking up around her and rustling the ever-green magical leaves around her.

"No friction," smiled Cter back to the monster who nodded in return. He and Cter helped out together with lifting the glass clock face into place and finally reattaching the handles. "How are you gonna make sure it's calibrated?" Cter took the opportunity to ask as she felt the bear monster's magic fade from hers and her robe tugging down at her shoulder again from the heavy coin purse settling inside her pocket.

"I'll just wait for when the castle rings out the next hour like they've had to do ever since this one broke. They've apparently put someone on duty to just count out loud up there. Aristocrats so important that even the seconds are worth counting, ey?" The bear monster extended his hand. "This is how you humans thank the other, right?" Cter took it while nodding to confirm his question. He smiled back with a deep bow to his head and single ear. "Would have taken the entire day if not tomorrow as well without your help, mage."

"Happy to help," thanked Cter before fishing up her journal and preparing to note down. "Will you be needing help in the future?"

"I think so."

Noted. "And with what frequency? Weeks? Days?"

"The clock needs calibrating once a month or so, but what we did today is rather seldom. Four cogs failing at the same time? Jeez!" He clicked his tongue against the clock with a disapproving frown. "I'll surely be requesting a budget for your services with the council though for once-a-month calibrations with a rainy-day fund for if this happens again. Sounds good?"

Very much noted!

"A bit cheaper next time if I put in some words for you with the council so that I can get myself some good wine and a pendant for my wife for her birthday next month?" came the antithesis of a subtle hint from the cheekily tilted head of the bear monster as he began cleaning his paws with an oil-stained handkerchief.

The brash, yet confident, suggestion had Cter laughing with the bear. "Sure, sounds fine." She made an event out of closing her journal hard so that it echoed and leaned into him the same way he did. "Only if you save up enough for some Royal Purple." When she opened her hand holding her journal she felt her skin peel off like Idyll's sliced tomato experiment in a pan without any oil in it. The bear monster handed her his handkerchief with a bashful apology through his aura. It was enough with some ice magic for her to clean off the oil stains from her journal though.

"I promise on my soul, if that's enough for a human mage."

It was.

Cter had made it so.

For while she wasn't a Monster Mage.

She was a mage to the monsters.