"Oh? Ebott's Cellar?" exclaimed Idyll with an accompanying whistle that ran up and down the wavy-shaped bottle she unwrapped from its covering parchment. With her magic flaring around her fist she balled the parchment and threw it across the room into the quietly crackling coal where it bounced against an angled piece of wood that rolled out onto the kitchen carpet.

Cter threw a conjured snowball onto it so that it wouldn't set the fabric ablaze and eventually the house. Their security deposit wouldn't cover that. Using the last linger from the bear monster's earlier-shared stasis magic she moved the blackened wood back into the coal pile where it began sizzling as it reheated. "Guess I picked the right Xoff wine then," she cheered to Idyll as the monster stabbed a claw into the cork. "The ghost at the shop told me it was a popular import from Xoff and that it was traded for Royal Purple between the two kingdoms."

The melodic pop echoed inside the apartment pleasantly. "What's traded for Royal Purple with Hjearta?" Not as melodic as Idyll's sigh of delight after she took her first whiff of the wine's aroma. She sank deeper into her chair, with her shoulders almost sliding down her torso with how relaxed she looked. Cter didn't even have to taste the wine with how much Idyll's aura spoiled the sweetness of the aroma. Just went straight to her soul and spread all over her.

Almost as if her scales were to turn into the color of the wine.

It was with an amused smile that Cter sat down Idyll's mug on the table and moved to seat herself on the other side with her own in hand. "From Hjearta the slime said that Lingonroot was traded for." The very last of the stasis magic Cter used to move the chair out to sit down. She had to scoot in with her own means though. "I haven't had it before, actually."

"I'll get us that one next time then," said Idyll while her pupils rolled up from desperately trying to look at the smell to experience it further. "Is it a spiced wine, by the way? I've heard that those are popular in Hjearta."

Cter lifted her mug out for Idyll to fill up. Truth be told Idyll could reach it without Cter moving it, but it was courteous. Idyll wasn't working at home now was she? "We'll have to taste to find out, but first." Cter held her mug in the air so that Idyll could cheer with her. Idyll reached out with her empty hand first, which Cter put her sleeve into.

A grateful and overwhelmingly comforting rush of friendship surged up Cter's arm and into her soul where it exploded with color up her neck and cheeks. Her cheeks stretched as if soured, and her smile bared just as wide as her monster friend's did. The color focused into an orange manifestation on her arm, swelling in size and shape to a shimmering, transparent shell that wistfully followed her motion, invigorating it with strength and force.

The two mugs didn't shatter that time as the magically infused cheer slammed together. Both the human and the monster made sure that some of the orange magic infused the mug too, keeping them whole as the impact of their solid friendship clanked like an anvil onto another anvil. The wine that sloshed out fell into the other's mug, and the few drops that still managed to escape were caught by Cter digging just a bit deeper to feel for the tiny grains of the stasis magic she could use to not have the table be stained.

"Another week of work done!" cried Idyll with a hearty laugh. "Another week closer to the castle!" She flung her mug back into her mug, stopping just short of lunging it into her mouth and chewing it along with the wine. "Another week closer to our promise!"

Cter cheered along, but behind her smile that Idyll had helped her drag wide, she was thinking. Was Idyll gonna say something about the castle too? Why else would she say anything about it? It was clear from the evening almost two years prior on their building's roof that the two didn't have to speak about their promise for the other to understand that she was still dedicated to it.

Then again, Cter was still ogling the magical trees that didn't change the colors on their leaves despite already being through that non-cycle once already. Maybe Idyll felt similar about the castle promise she and Cter had done? The thought had the human completely missing the taste of the wine as it danced across her tongue.

"How was it to your tongue?" Idyll wondered after a silent minute of letting the taste envelop her and her aura. Why she asked was that she'd come to realize that human tongues tasted food differently than monsters do. Snails, for an example, were a staple in monster cuisine and was sworn upon to be a delicacy almost unmatched. The humans that tasted it though had trouble agreeing and more trouble retorting with something else other than choked heaving.

And to make it edible for humans there was a certain loss to its purity and simplicity that made it too different for monsters to despise it. Not that they said it out loud, but it was a secret to everyone. So much so that to show solidarity, understanding, and willingness to cooperate in difficult matters most important meetings between human and monster matters were accompanied by humans eating monster-seasoned snails and monsters eating human-seasoned snails.

Bastardized in Soul's School with the snails mixed together and contestants dared to pick one to eat at the same time. Cter wasn't brave enough to play Soul Of Snail during her studies, but she would have probably give it a go after having lived in Jarasevo for over a year. While her nose still urged her to walk on the other side of the street it didn't force her to take a monster-couple of corners as a detour around the snail shops.

She'd planned how to not encounter them ever since she started with her journal after buying that town map.

While swirling her mug underneath her nose Cter hummed in pretend thought. "There's this subtle sour tang to it. Whether it is because it aims to be sophisticated to compliment what it is usually paired with, or delinquent to contrast instead, it is difficult to say as they beautifully mix together upon the very first touch on the tongue."

Wait...

The hell was Cter saying?

Did that ghost clerk accidentally possess her sleeve or something? Her vocal chords?

It didn't stop either! Even with the table beginning to shake as Idyll failed to hold in her larger laughter behind her large hand Cter still sang prose.

"While I am not able to pinpoint due to the wine spreading its wings and covering my entire mouth with this fresh, yet still musky, sensation which gives playful hints to the wood of the barrel the wine was matured in, I do not feel like I want to pinpoint it."

When could've it have been? Cter closed her eyes to try and think. Her mouth continued to speak though. Idyll's teeth were splitting and coming together with each of her sharp chortles.

"Because to pinpoint is to rob it of the surprise and uniqueness that forms within each one that samples it. Me explaining how I feel will influence your experience of it. This is a wine that should be experienced by yourself."

Was it...was it when Cter helped the ghost reach up onto the top shelf? When she let it use some of her stasis magic that still lingered from the bear monster? Yeah...must've been then. She had spent the stasis though, so why was it still going? Was it because it was she was lending out magic she had lent herself? She had not done that before? Or had she?

Idyll was wondering too.

Somewhere amid her snorting and howling which most likely had the downstairs neighbors annoyed.

"Yourself becomes something else though after the first taste. Each caress of the grapes, both the hands and feet, are felt massaging the throat. The sensitive, physical extremities of humans bringing a comforting equal, or more, to that of a secure duvet at night."

The ghost clerk. He...he thanked Cter with some magical text, didn't he? She must've equated the stasis magic with the ghost's! That then got activated with her using the last of the stasis for her chair to hop in closer to the kitchen table! Pushing it further brought up the equivalence with the ghost and the stasis magic, and it was from his memories she brought the stasis out to catch the wine drops. It was her acting on his magic which she didn't have and instead her soul filled it in, giving her the want to speak like the ghost would.

Great! Cter had solved it!

Her inner success was cut short by her outer noble snort which had Idyll finally falling over the table with roaring laughter. "In one word? Exquisite!"

Cter had to get the ghost clerk out of her fast lest she decided it would be a good idea to extend her pinky finger next!

Which she did!

Oh no!

Her terrified expression manifested itself as her inner scream above her head like a glowing, ghostly sign that shook as if about to burst. The silent screams began as a soft font, but quickly turned sharp and almost inverted, becoming letters from a distant culture traversing as a caravan in the shape of a twig behind her head.

"Is this a-"

Idyll's question was cut quiet by Cter's sudden gasp that tried with all its might to suck in the words her mouth had spoken just before without her own thoughts to them. Her chest swelled along with her cheeks like a Froggit trying to look intimidating. When she finally exhaled after a few-too-many seconds of holding her breath in and turning her face the same blossoming red as her cheeks, Cter sank down in her chair until only her head remained on the seat.

"Too much monster for this mage..." came a whisper from her lips with her mug dragged over the table's lip with all her five fingers clenching at the wooden handle like a rope keeping her from falling down. She drank a long sip before heaving herself back up to a somewhat-respectable position on her chair. Underneath her lowered brow she saw the lower jaw of Idyll flapping like flag in the wind. "Wine's fine, by the way."

"Oh I sure heard that," replied the blue monster with naked and displayed amusement at her human friend's peril.

Like good friends do.

"Nothing more you want to add?" she tucked inside her chortle that she sent across the table with the receiver paying the postage. "You didn't say anything about the-" Idyll's grin made it hard for her to form words. "You didn't say anything about the color of the wine."

With love, Cter made a rude gesture with the orange magic Idyll had lent her, but it only had the monster laughing harder. It was really impressive how much Idyll could laugh before needing to breathe in. Granted, when she did, it sounded like a dull saw trying to grip its teeth on a brick. The pain from it was quickly furthered dull by some more of Ebott's Cellar down her throat in a giggling gurgle.

She was really making up for all the manners she was forced to apply to herself during work. While Cter would've made some harsh noises for her friend to behave herself if they had or were guests, she couldn't in good faith voice any reprimanding denouncement slumped over the table with her mug angled dangerously close to spilling.

To that reality the mage sighed into the cavern made with her bent arm laid strewn on the creaking table, and her forehead resting on the bend of her arm. "Why couldn't I also get the ghost's ability to disappear?" Her mug was clanked on by Idyll's in solidarity, although it would've felt a bit more genuine if she'd waited a bit longer to do it. "I think I might a bit too tired with magic right now."

"Should've seen me earlier today when Krygino's handwriting had me asking what he meant by justice as a drink for a Royal Guard," Idyll offered to further show that her sympathies were genuine despite her being a bit too eager with cheering at Cter's loosely held mug. "I made a snarky comment about how it would be them bringing justice to me rather than me bringing justice to them."

Cter peeked up from her grotto of self-detriment to Idyll tapping her mug resting on her knee crossed over her other one. "Not as gracefully as I said it now, unfortunately," she sighed as the tapping turned into impatient drumming. "Also it turned out that the Royal Guard had ordered just ice and not justice."

Oh…

Idyll nodded to the human's expression scrunching up in emphatic wincing. "Yup," smacked the monster's lips which were swiftly wettened by the helpful pool of Ebott's Cellar becoming as shallow as a puddle when Idyll was done.

For the moment.

"Slunk–"

"Slunk?" Cter couldn't help herself from reacting to it. "Is that a word?"

"Yes, slunk," acknowledged Idyll with a confused nod. "Slink now, slunk before."

Not something Cter had heard about before. She shrugged.

Oh well.

"I slunk back down into the kitchen quickly afterwards," Idyll tried again after letting the silence hover for a second or two between her and Cter. She waited until Cter brought the mug up to her lips before continued. "Could have melt the ice in my hands. Didn't do it though."

Probably for the better.

That Idyll kept opening and closing her free hand though? Not really for the better. Especially with how she threw her palm open in a lurch indicative of igniting the spark to a magical fire and then slowly bringing the fingers together gently just a bit to hold it controlled and contained. Cter had let Idyll borrow her fire magic a couple of times to try new techniques with frying and simmering, but there hadn't really been a time when Idyll had tried it on her own. There was a slight murkiness taking root in Idyll's aura too, like a drop of ink inside clear water.

"Maybe I should've melted them?"

Cter created a few weak ice cubes that would melt at the slightest touch that she reached over with towards Idyll's sagged form. It perked up slightly at the gesture, but ultimately denied it. Cter then melted the ice cubes over the potted plant in the middle of the table. A fern from Hjearta which was said to bring together a house into a home. It'd been on the table for little more than a year.

Something told Cter to not use fire magic to melt the cubes as that would've made things worse. With how Idyll stared at Cter's hand almost longingly it was the correct choice to make. By then it was clear that Idyll harbored something she absolutely wanted to say to Cter in the same way Cter wanted to say something to Idyll. They could almost grab at the questions the other wanted to say out of their aura and display it in their palms.

Despite that, neither voiced up and spoke.

That told the other enough though.

For why wouldn't the other want to speak up unless it would be something they feared the other would outright dismiss, maybe even angrily? Maybe the bottle Ebott's Cellar would be the last wine the two were to open together and drink together? That fear was enough to close their mouth and only timidly sip at their wine while avoiding the other's eye contact.

From overwhelming laughter and embarrassment to dreaded silence with just a couple of ice cubes conjured by Cter. It shouldn't have been enough, yet it was. Not as much the amount, but the clarity it brought through the refracting inside the ice cubes. It was enough to show the concerned frowns that the two really wanted to show. How the air was between them.

Chilling.

That's what it was.

Chilling in a way only friends could have while still trusting the other enough not to leave. For in the end they wanted the best for the other, even if it meant having to build up enough courage to potentially end that friendship. It was more fair to the other to voice their question as early as possible and not let it harbor. Not let it fester until they were no longer open to the fact that they could be wrong about their thinking or that their friend could still accept it. Few things were that chilling though as the air between Cter and Idyll. Cter would go on to associate cold with that moment the two had between them instead of the cold and ice of the lake back at her village in Hjearta.

It would make her ice less crystalline and more airy as it was a cold from her soul and not her body. Her monster clients and customers would be quick to notice, Cter feared, but they would not really voice their concerns. For a monster's magic to change so drastically it required something drastic to happen.

Even more for a human mage.

"More wine?"

"Please, and thank you."

It was a reason for the two to be quiet longer which was much appreciated even if they didn't really say anything and just spoke out of reflex. Idyll with her crossed legs and her mug resting on her scaly knee with her thumb's claw running around the rim of her wooden mug. Cter with the lip of her respective wooden mug leaning on her lower human lip and her elbow held up by the palm of her sleeved arm.

Just quiet.

Respectfully quiet as the shadows from the kitchen windows shifted ever so slightly and the distance sound of the clock in Jarasevo Time's Square rang its notice of the death of the current hour and the birth of the next. Long live the hour.

Just...quiet…

Cter poured the next round of mutually accepted silence into the two emptied mugs after the new hour had entered its autumn the same as the season that had gripped Monster Country's landscape. Befallen it, maybe? No, not with the magical crops and forests sustaining on magic. Fall was a human term. What Cter had chosen not to mention to the bear monster earlier in the day was that the leaves covering the ground in autumn, while stripping the trees of luster, brought such a beautiful and necessary cover to the ground.

A duvet for the earth.

Fallen down.

It was what the humans called death. To have fallen down, and become fallen down. The luster and shine which was their life returned to the soil which had given them the luster and shine they'd enjoyed throughout their life. Like the leaves, the humans became another part of nature as fallen down.

They take, and they give back.

Action-Reaction.

With only a memory left behind.

For monsters the concept of death was dust to dust. The monster's favorite possession had the most lingering magic from it, and strewing the dust of the deceased upon the favorite possession was believed, and hoped, to make the last memories of the deceased that of the happiness and joy it had found in its life.

It was no wonder then that when the Cooperative Connection was found and the first inscriptions were made that the parallels between death and human magic flared up like the first flames made with human magic.

It was the same as with monster death!

Which was why the Cooperative Connection only worked between a monster and a human which the monster would give its life for, or close to. Only memories strong and joyous enough as to be life-changing for the monster was enough to bring forth a human mage's potential.

The inverse of monster death. To give their own memory in life to who they cared for the most.

The inverse of human death then made the magic flourish. Reaction-Action. While prompted by action from the human's soul, the actual magic began in the monster memories, as was taught in Soul's School.

Because of that the Cooperative Connection was strong enough to influence human and monster society. For if together the two races could overcome and harness the concept of their respective death, then their potential while working together would, and did, bring prosperity and well-being to all!

However, the concept of death had been skewed through the couple, human couple, of generations of human mages. For if they were technically harnessing death, even if they were doing it as inversely as it could be, was there a way to make it even more inversely? With monsters leaving behind magical dust could humans also leave behind something when they died?

Stronger memories, really. That was all that had been found. Nothing substantial. No change to their fallen down. Humans were very much still two parts, with their body still determining their being even if they could conjure flames and ice in their hand. It was clear that magic did something to the human soul though, even if just enabling its potential to make magic of its own.

It was easier for later human mages to learn magic compared to the previous generation, exemplified by Cter, if she was allowed to toot her own horn, but not in public. From that it was clear that the connection between humans and monsters was growing stronger with time. Shown both in the individual and in the society which had become increasingly dependent on its human and monster part.

Was it strong enough for Cter to even be able to fulfill Romrom's promise though?

She glanced over to Idyll across the table.

And would this skewed perception of death claim their friendship?

Damn…

Ebott's Cellar sure was hitting Cter hard.

The cold between her and Idyll was equivalent to that of the grave though, even if it was mutually understood and vented between the two so that when they would decide to ask the other they'd not be surprised by the cold. Singe Cter's soul though it was draining on her. She couldn't imagine how it was for Idyll then. For her as a monster the cold didn't stop at her bones, but went even deeper.

It was why when she was the one to break the silence that Cter gasped in shock. "Tomorrow," said Idyll after putting her mug down on the table. "Can you make sure you're not tired when I get home from work?" She didn't look at Cter when she asked. Her face was hidden behind her covering veil of hair only showing the tip of her tilted-down muzzle. "I'll ask Krygino if I can work dishes tomorrow since you and I have something planned later that evening."

Cter nodded as her answer. Whether Idyll could see it wasn't important. Cter knew that Idyll knew that Cter agreed to it.

They were the best of friends, after all.

Best of friends that would suffer even the coldest of shoulders between them.

It worried Cter that the two had to go through it though, and that worry in her aura Idyll walked straight through as she headed into her room to sleep. Cter sat alone at the table with her half-emptied mug of wine. She could easily have fallen into her own thoughts and stewed on it.

However, she chose not to. Instead she drank the rest of her wine and called it a day just the same as Idyll had. She respected her friend. She trusted her.

Whatever Idyll would ask the day after Cter would answer.

Even if it meant what she thought it would be.