The world around Cter collapsed into a white flash that sent her and Idyll stumbling back from each other. She propped herself up on the wall behind her that she crashed into, clutching at her chest with her torso and head slumped over with deep and greedy breaths.

It all felt so strange to her. Her body felt wrong, as did the way she inhaled and exhaled. Her head was spinning, her stomach turned, her knees buckled. Even the way her tongue settled in her mouth felt as it would choke her.

Who was she?

What was she?

She was...human?

How?

A life which she felt that she had experienced, but which wasn't really her own, was still flickering in her head with each moment blinking into the next with alarming rate. She clutched at her head, clenching her teeth against it.

But that felt strange as well! Her head was so much closer to her hands! As if her muzzle had been chopped off!

But...no? She was human? She wasn't supposed to have one, was she?

The one who was supposed to have it. To have the long, light-blue mouth covering her lower vision was…

"Idyll!"

Cter snapped her head over to her friend curled on the floor on the opposite side of the room wrapped inside the kitchen window curtain that she'd ripped through with her claws. Her hand was clutching her chest too, and a white light was fading from inside her tensed fingers and palm, spreading white rays from in-between.

On knees still wobbly, but forced to obey and be rigid in need to help Idyll, Cter rushed over to her friend trembling in pain. Despite that she had to take support on the table and chairs as she passed them by, knocking over the latter in the process and tripping over onto the floor as she put too much weight on the backrests.

"Idyll," Cter repeated through gritted teeth and a worried curl to her lips, but her arms couldn't push her up again. She felt drained inside. Hollow. As if her mind, body, and soul weren't in the same place. The sense of hard touch on the wooden floor registered with her a second or so after she saw her hand connect, and the disconnect didn't allow her to push as she wanted.

Worse so was that the impact from her tripping over came even later, as did her crashing into the wall. Her body was retracing with each step she took, each close encounter to get a splinter as she slid her hand across the table, and with each of the slow, panicked seconds that passed she became more aware throughout all her limbs from when she fell.

It was as if her body was trying to go back to where it made sense for it, leaving her mind and soul in the process.

"Idyll..." Cter coughed and rolled on her side to curl up in an attempt to quell the alien feeling rushing inside her like a mighty river. She knew she wanted to cry, but from what and why she didn't know why. Was it from the memories that assaulted her mind? Was it her mind trying to reject them? Was it the physical pain? Was it the magical pain? Was it her friend hurting too?

Whatever it was, Cter could do nothing against it. She even questioned if it was her that could do nothing about it or if it was Idyll that she had experienced just now? Idyll, the real Idyll, the Idyll wincing just out of reach of Cter, had given Cter her soul! She'd put her life inside Cter's sleeve and Cter's soul had reacted to it like nothing Cter had perceived before. That small magical change in her personality had overwhelmed her. Made her think and feel like Idyll. The same memories Idyll had to her Cter now had too.

Cter could even remember handing her white monster soul to herself!

She saw the hesitation and reluctant worry on her own face, yet still also remember how much she wanted herself to have her white soul. It was Idyll's thoughts and Idyll's eyes that Cter remembered looking through, but to her it was her own thoughts and own eyes. Hjearta felt like a distant place. Soul's School felt like something she had only heard about.

It made her nauseous trying to make sense of it all! Where her human memories ended and where her given monster memories began. All the while the real Idyll whimpered and painfully sobbed in front of her, rolling more inside herself and stretching the curtain fabric until it gave up and burst into shreds.

The pieces looked like falling leaves.

Like those at Mom and Dad's graves.

No!

Cter shook her head violently to get those thoughts away. It wasn't her parents. It was Idyll's. Her own were alive and well in Hjearta. She had to remember! She had to keep herself humans otherwise she'd never be able to do magic again!

Just as how a monster's magic can linger on an object it could just as well linger inside a human. Not as a Cooperative Connection, but as a loop that just fed into itself. There was no disconnect that could prompt a Reaction-Action, even less project magic outside the human body. It would just feed into the lingering monster magic and then back into the human's soul.

Cter had to project it! Get it out of both her head and soul. She had to summon Idyll's magic while at the same time having it be, and not be, her own magic. Both sweep it away like dust with a broom, but also collect it in a tray and come back to it.

Sweep it away she knew how to do. That she had done before many times, lastly with the ghost clerk. Expand her aura inside her and feel where it acted differently, to then make herself aware of the difference and project it out her…

Sleeve. Out her sleeve.

Her sleeve! Yes! It was her only way!

Cter threw her elbow against the nearest leg of the table. She felt the hit shake it, but the pain from the first hit didn't come to her until the third or forth. Each hit she could hear the cutlery shake. Whether or not it shook closer to the edge of table she didn't know, but it was the only thing she could do. After a while her rhythm began syncing up with her previous hits, and Cter managed to fool herself into thinking that the pain from her hits were from the last one she threw and not one before. It allowed her to hit the leg even harder, and at last the knife Idyll used earlier in the evening for dinner fell down and bounced off one of her ribs before it landed in front of her.

As she waited for the time-lagged pain to end with her sleeved hand clutching at her right elbow, Cter stared at her grandma's line-work on her sleeve. It had faded a bit with time now and became more rounded and slightly cracked at its ends where it either surfaced or dove deeper into the leather to connect with other lines, but there was still room for more to be drawn. Romrom couldn't give more of herself, so there weren't as many lines as some of the other mages had.

It was her and Cter's close connection that allowed her human magic flourish. They had known each other for the entirety of Cter's life, after all.

So with the even closer connection Idyll had chosen to share with Cter out of her own free will and want the lines needed would be fewer too? Was it possible for Cter to carve enough lines with the knife for her to pour Idyll's memories into her sleeve?

Well it had to!

"It has to!" shouted Cter to get rid of the final sharp waves of pain radiating from her elbow up and down her right arm. Her arm shook and her eyes stung from the sweat that poured down and collected in the folds of her strained expression. "It just has to work!"

After wiping off the few crumbs of cooled stew off the knife's blade Cter touched it against her sleeve.

Immediately she was overwhelmed by horrified emotion that poured from her sleeve. Images of her monster grandma filled her already stuffed mind, and Cter dropped the knife to clutch at her temples that she felt were on the brink of exploding from the pressure of all the different memories clashing inside of her mind and soul.

Her, Idyll, Romrom. The instant change from one to the other had Cter screaming and writhing as both the pain from Idyll losing her parents ground against Romrom's soul inside her sleeve panicking from Cter's intent against it. Wherever and however she tried to move her thoughts her memories that weren't hers kept on flaring in intensity as they chased after.

It was too much.

It was too much!

She was losing herself. It all began melding together inside of her head. All of her effort that she could afford she had to spend separating who she, Idyll, and Romrom was to Cter.

Cter…

Cter?

Was that her name?

Her...human...name?

Was she that, even?

With all those thoughts in her head being that of monsters? Why would a human only have those thoughts with no human perspective in them?

Her eyes fell on the knife she had dropped. With her head still roaring with all those different places, names, and events happening simultaneously, yet at the same time being so disconnected between one and the other, it was as if she saw it for the first time. It took her less than a moment to know what to use it for. A thought that spawned from the friction scraping inside of her head.

What if it was the human she felt that was wrong?

She grabbed the knife again, with her left hand instead. Her monster hand. The one for magic.

She felt monster wherever in her aura, so why was there human as her body?

The cold, steel edge was pressed against her naked right wrist, against the skin of a human.

If she removed the human the monsters whirling inside her mind and soul could settle.

So she put weight on the blade, and pushed it do–

"Cter!"

With a muffled bounce the knife's handle hit the rag carpet, dropped from a hand loosened by the cold shiver that shot up Cter's spine hearing the monster she thought she was speak from behind her. She turned her head over her shoulder shakily, her eyes widened in bewilderment and mouth wanting to both scream and shut tight and never speak ever again.

Idyll was still clutching at her chest with her chin bent down in a pained grimace. "Your aura..." she coughed out in agony, causing her draped hair to jerk like an unraveled, whipped piece of cloth. "Where are you, Cter?" It danced like wheat in a storm as she shook her head with her grimace hardening. "You're not there in your aura."

Not there in her aura…

Cter turned back to her arm that had begun feeling wet. A long red streak snaked itself down her angled-up forearm to temporarily collect in the bend of her arm only to drip down onto the carpet below. She followed the drops down with her eyes, seeing it dot around the stained metal of the knife that she had dropped, realizing.

It was blood.

She was human.

Her aura though, it was all monster. Too much monster, even. Too many monsters. She had to subdue them. It was her aura!

So she withdrew it, collected it inside of her like a metal spring, holding it together however she could. The spiritual cold that took her over from not feeling her own aura had her gasp with fear, but it was her own fear that made her do it. Her own thoughts and feelings of it.

It was quiet.

She could hear herself think!

Only herself think!

Cter pushed both her hands up to her face as she began sobbing. She had almost lost who she was! What she was! It was only then that she could hear how scared she really was. How frightened of drowning inside her own magic and thoughts she tried to scream out, but to no avail. The nauseous she felt wasn't from the fear of what had happened though, it was the fear of what was about to happen.

As she lowered her left arm lined with dust and monster soul, and her right arm lined with blood and human tears, Cter again looked over to her friend who's sharp breaths had become almost inaudible. "What have we done?" the human asked her monster friend. "We went too far!"

She shouldn't have accepted what Idyll gave her! She should've rejected the notion! No! No! Cter knew deep down that she wouldn't be able to control how much she'd take away from Idyll! Not only her memories, but her magic too!

Idyll trusted Cter with her life, and Cter stole it! It was locked inside the mage, with her not knowing how to return it to her monster friend. How much was it? How much of Idyll had Cter stolen? She didn't mean to. "I promise!" she cried out with her left arm reaching out for her friend. Her fingers blossomed with orange magic, and she clenched it hard to not let any of it spill. "I didn't meant too..." It could have been Idyll's magic that leaked out. Her precious life that Cter was just wasting.

How could she give it back? Give it all back! She couldn't inscribe it into her sleeve no longer as that would be taking from Idyll's life what she wanted to return.

But how then?

"How!"

Think!

She had to think!

Could she give it back like she was borrowing her magic to Idyll, yet instead hand Idyll's magic over instead? No, no that wouldn't work! That wouldn't have made it permanent. It would just be borrowed!

"Sarbor..." whimpered Idyll as she slid down from her feverish sit down the ripped curtain onto the floor. To Cter's horror Idyll left behind her a glimmering trail as she fell. "It hurts."

Dust!

Each panicked crawl shot bolts of pain up the wound on Cter's right arm. "Idyll!" However it was drowned out by her stopped heart pushing her forward from within her throat. "No!"

Idyll's body lay heavy inside the quivering cradle Cter held her friend in. Quick with desperation she summoned her aura again and its clashing identity. It yet again flooded her mind of conflicting memories and made her body feel as if it wasn't her own. Inside her soul she knew who she was though, and more importantly, she knew who the dying monster in her arms was. Like looking for a last sigh inside a hurricane, Cter ran her aura up and down Idyll to find...something! Something that could hint at the monster's aura and connect with it.

It was quiet.

"Idyll!"

So quiet.

"Where are you?"

So very, very quiet.

A scale peeled off the light-blue cheek as it turned limp from being tensed up in pain and fear. A single scale which glistened in the faint candlelight from the knocked-over stick on the table. Its shimmer dissipated into dust, which settled into the quickly pumping river of red on Cter's arm. A pinkish hue carried it away down her arm into drops that soaked into her robe.

It was the only chance Cter would get! It made her sick as a friend to have to do something invasive to Idyll, but she didn't know any other way she could. "I'm sorry," she apologized before making her aura flare up.

And entered it into the white crack left open by the falling scale.

It would only be that one time though. She would not do it again! It was to save Idyll! She had to do it!

Through her magic, Cter poured everything she felt of Idyll back into the monster. Copies of the scrambled memories, the feeling of her magic, and her own memories of the two being friends. She prodded it, agitated it almost, as her aura caressed the white void to try and hold it close.

But it wasn't enough for a reaction.

So she poured in more.

"Please hear me, Idyll!"

It wasn't enough.

"Think of Mom and Dad!"

So she poured in more.

"Think of Sarbor!"

But it wasn't enough…

"Think of..."

So she poured in more.

"Our promise."

It was then that the white void began glowing a bright orange and Cter felt her aura being pushed out from inside of Idyll. The monster spat a horrendous choke as she flew up into a sit with her arms clutching at her chest. "Idyll!"

"Cter?" answered the monster while wildly searching for her breath that alluded her the same as Cter's had just a minute ago. "I can feel you." A smile briefly tugged at her grimacing lips, but it disappeared as quickly as it formed. "You're here again!"

Cter embraced her friend with a howl of her held-back inner agony seeing her friend so close to…

No!

"You're here too!"

No! She couldn't think that way!

Idyll was there, for the moment. There was no telling how long Cter's borrowing her magic to her friend would last.

Which meant she didn't know how long her friend would…

"Cter?" piqued Idyll as a wave of angry focus cascaded throughout her human friend's aura. "What is it?" She looked down to Cter's bloodied right arm with horror. "Your arm." With haste she ripped off a piece of her shirt and tied it tightly around the crimson source. "What happened? How long has it been bleeding?" Without waiting for an answer she hovered her hand above Cter's wrist. "I'll put pressure on with my magic."

No!

"Don't!"

Cter snatched back her wrist out of Idyll's grip, leaving the monster's mouth half-opened and stunned. The two met each other's eyes. Idyll's shimmering with confusion and disarray, and Cter's with turmoil and knowing dread. Her right hand clenched into a fist that she brought to her chest, her left hand held hard against her right wrist's wound.

Idyll was right, it needed pressure. Cter was relieved and glad that Idyll was aware enough to realize that.

But she couldn't give it.

"You can't do magic, Idyll."

Idyll first lowered her brow to scoff at that ridiculous notion. The inappropriately timed joke she waited for Cter to reveal didn't arrive though, and her folded forehead smoothed out as she lifted up her hand in front of her.

Cter could feel Idyll trying to ignite and summoner her orange magic. When that didn't work Cter felt Idyll try again, harder. The monster's aura pushed hard against the human's, but Cter had to keep hers around her friend. Keep her together.

"What is this..." mouthed Idyll with her mouth, but screamed it inside her aura.

"I have your magic, Idyll."

The monster looked into the human's eyes with one eye twitching in horrid belief, and the other eye in equally horrid disbelief. "You're lying." Even as she said it Cter felt through her friend's aura that Idyll thought the opposite. If it was a test by the monster Cter didn't know. The reaction afterwards she would know for the rest of her days.

Of her friend's tremble beginning inside her eyes and spreading out all over her like a struck tuning fork. The note she sang was that of lament. "Am I..." her mouth failed to speak. Not even clenching her teeth for courage and swallowing away what fear she could was enough. "Am I dead?"

"I'm lending out your magic back to you, Idyll," revealed Cter with her soul weighing heavy inside her. Idyll was but a monster, and her magic was nothing compared to what Cter possessed, but she knew that she lived for the two of them, and that frightened her.

Even with her aura connected as invasively as could be it wasn't enough for Cter to even begin to imagine how frightened Idyll was. The difference between the two's magic was like a child's arm width compared to the difference in fear with its respective width like a squid monster's reach.

"And I don't know if I can give it back to you," Cter continued with her head and voice lowered as she looked at her sleeve. "I only know how to borrow, and to lend out. I had an idea, but it wouldn't work."

"How do you mean that it wouldn't work?" cried Idyll back. She didn't dare move a single muscle or take the slightest breath. Cter was ashamed that she couldn't look her friend in the eyes. She knew what the two had done. She knew what she had done! Yet she averted her eyes like a schoolgirl afraid of asking someone out for some tea.

Pathetic.

"Answer me! Why wouldn't it work?"

Why wouldn't it work?

"I...don't know."

She really didn't know why it wouldn't. She couldn't explain. Cter was just too afraid to try at that point. Even with her knowing exactly what was to happen if she didn't try. If she just sat there without acting her magic would eventually run out and Idyll would…

She would…

"You don't know why it wouldn't work?"

Cter shook her head. "I don't."

"You don't."

"I don't."

A shadow befell Idyll's face, darkened by her hair almost moving by itself to further obfuscate her eyes. "So you don't know even if you've never tried?" Angry folds began wrinkling her muzzle, turning it an almost purplish hue. Cter felt her friend tug more of her aura in. "Why did you even bother borrowing me my magic then!" Idyll tried to reach out with a clawed hand against the human, but the movement sent a flash of pain throughout her. "You're just torturing me then! Why did you do this! I'm just… Am I just a magical puppet for you?!"

The flash felt strangely familiar to Cter, and Idyll's angry outburst went straight past her as she tried to remember exactly where it was she recognized it from. Could it be...

"Why are you just keeping me alive by your whim, Cter?"

She can't think! "Shh!" Cter reflexively hushed.

It brought a quick silence from Idyll as her face sank in melting disgust. "Is that what I am to you?" dripped from her lips slicked with poison. "Is this what I always was to you, mage? Did you just befriend me so that you could take my magic?" She again reached out with her clawed hand towards the human busy while deep in thought. "Then how about I take it back."

Please, please! Please let it happen!

"We'll die..."

Just do it!

"Together!"

Again a flash of pain surged through Idyll, causing her to howl and her body to convulse before it collapsed on the floor with her spitting her breathing. With a meek, yet still violently disgusted, swat she tried to push away her so-called friend squatting down with a smile.

"I'm your sleeve," said the smile.

Idyll didn't understand.

So Cter put up her right arm. "Summon your magic around my arm. Not like what you did when you gave me some of yours when we sat together on the roof, but with your own magic."

Idyll still didn't understand.

"The pain you felt was that of a reverberation from your intent against me. It's why us human mages can't fight. We can't twist the Cooperative Connection away from the memories inscribed for us to use. Such a loving act of trust and sacrifice to see someone else grow and become great is too constructive to ever be destructive."

Idyll...still…

"If you can do it I know how to give you back your magic."

"..."

A moment later Cter's arm exploded with orange, and she jolted back, startled by the intensity. She began laughing. Laughing with relief!

"I can save you, Idyll!" she cheered, throwing herself into Idyll's weak embrace. She didn't care that her friend's hurting intent had caused the reverb, all she wanted was for Idyll to hug her back! "You did the action by giving me your soul, and I'll give you the reaction back to you."

It was another inverse! It was something Cter could do! Another change of the pieces. Another road out of the city to a distant land. Not for coin or for work.

But to save her friend.

"H-How?" Idyll leaned her weight against her friend. It was all that she could. "H-How do you know?" Crying was too much for her, even. Twitched heaves was the only thing left within her.

But only for the moment.

"I'll tell you in detail once we're done, Idyll." Cter lifted up her friend's hand up on her sleeve where it rested heavily. "Tomorrow we'll go to the castle." Instead of probing the memories on her own she instead let the memories of Idyll inside of her flourish and whirl within her soul. "Summon your magic again, Idyll. From my sleeve this time. Do the Reaction, and I'll do the Action."

She was so proud!

"You said to the castle, Cter?"

So proud of how far she'd come!

"I did, Idyll."

So very proud of her human granddaughter.

"Wait..."

So proud that she was on her way to Jarasevo Castle, finally. Another step closer to her promise being fulfilled.

"Idyll! No!"

Together.

"Together."