The door to Sir Gerson's office squeaked open.

"Fang Shuey has organized separate rooms for Cter and Idyll," informed Sund with two fingers flicked up. They were joined with the rest on his sleeved hand as he yawned wider than his aching jaw allowed him too. For a brief second his head was deprived of oxygen despite his yawn, and he stopped just one step away from Kry's outstretched hand so that he wouldn't faint on the spot. "Oh, sorry," he apologized after his yawn having felt Kry's eyebrows lower through his aura. He moved over one of the decorated porcelain cups of tea he had made hover in his fathom with stasis magic. Once the ear of the cup of tea with two spoons of sugar in it hooked over Kry's awaiting finger he nodded a thanks.

"Yes I remembered the sugar," Sund voiced before Kry would ask as he always did. Having yawned away his immense tiredness, at least for a moment, Sund spread out the rest of the cups to their respective drinkers. To Sir Gerson the cup with two dashes of honey to the Golden Flower tea went to, placed where his furrowed eyes were not looking on his map. The saucer covered up Xoff since Sund guessed that country wasn't relevant at the moment. The cup with some added squeezes of lemon hovered over to Frioke deep in meditative focus on the sleeve she had borrowed to Cter. Sund made sure to add a bit of his magic to it so that Frioke would sense it and not accidentally spill. Kurant's cup weighted down one of her stacks of scrolls that seemed to lean a bit too much to the side, more so with the drops of milk in it. The floating dots of cinnamon matched the specks of crust falling off the ends of the old scrolls she was studying.

Finally Sund dissipated the purple magic around his own cup of Golden Flower tea brewed with a higher ratio of Golden Flower than the rest of the ones he'd ordered from the Royal Kitchen on his exhausted way back from the far end of the castle where the guest rooms were. Fang Shuey, the ghost Royal Accommodate, did raise an incorporeal eyebrow at Sund's request of two rooms to be made proper for a human and a monster guest as it was obvious which two he meant. Even more so when he ordered that the guests he assured Fang Shuey were just guests to be housed for the night were to be placed under guard and be reported straight to Sir Gerson should they either wake up or not wake up.

With the amount of sass on that ghost Sund was always surprised that there wasn't a big 'ol stain on the locked doors she flew through to begin arrange the rooms.

"You look like you want me to add another bed to your room so that you can sleep twice as deeply, Monster Mage," the ghost left behind as she faded from view to begin preparing the accommodations as requested. "With how tired you look you're probably finding it logical." Her smug aura hung around like a bad stench as she phased through one of the castle walls, but that could've been Sund for all he knew. He wasn't really in the best of either dress or shape, and with his strained aura dragging behind him like a kite without wind whispers were already abound of what had happened the night prior. About the human in the prison and the monster who's aura had frightened the entirety of the Monster Capital.

"Singe my soul," Sund sighed, taking the opportunity to cool down his tea in the process since he was too tired to do it separately. His shoulder scraped as he leaned against the wall next to the window looking over the western part of Jarasevo. Even up from there he could easily spot where the apartment building where he and his colleagues had picked up that imprisoned human and the aura-distraught monster in the dead of night.

Even with the added stimulant of his stronger tea it wasn't enough to counter the weight of his eyelids threatening to pull his head down with them. He wouldn't have time to construct a barricade in time to not slam his head against the stone window sill.

From below, the Jarasevo Time's Square clock rang sixteen times before falling silent. Usually it was hard to hear when the window was closed, but with the overworked auras struggling just to exist a dropped needle would have made them all deaf. A sense of unfairness washed over him in tandem with the feeling of the Golden Flower tea spreading its warmth throughout him. While, yes, the situation with the human and monster friend had been resolved, it was the two that created it to begin with.

Still it were them that were sleeping soundly in soft beds and not awake to deal with the aftermath.

"Calm down," muttered Kry from across the office. "Don't let your exhaustion go to your soul, Sund."

Oh it was already way too late for that. Especially with the...whatever it was that slammed against his magical barricade from the two friends. Struck at his magic like a damn hammer made by Sir Gerson and wielded by King Asgore. Sund's bones felt like a struck tuning fork, his soul even more so. The crack of a whip, right inside him.

He caressed his cup anxiously.

How was he supposed to be the one offering to put the first foot forwards for new magics if he was the one that took the blunt of the hit? In the tired state he was in? The only reason he used stasis magic to carry the cups back to the office was that it took effort from him, even if it was trivial for him. It required focus. A calculated risk.

But it was a close one.

Which had been the motto of the entire day, really.

Too close for comfort and too many of the close ones.

Too close with the entire city descending into a panic. Too close with Kry misjudging the human's state during his interrogation breaking her down too much to not get an answer. Too close with it all coming apart with the human pulling a repeat of what she did during the night before. Too close with Sund's barricade cracking and almost leaking out...whatever it was.

And too close with his tea spilling from his hand loosening its grip on it.

A drop landed on the knee of his robe, staining it an ugly brown with the yellow tea mixing with the purple of the fabric.

"Fluffbun."

"Maybe if you swear one more time it'll come around and be effective?" suggested Kurant into her cup which gave her voice just the slightest melodic echo to it. "And that's not Toriel speaking." Having said that, it was obvious that it indeed was Toriel's influence from her sleeve that made her say that. "We've all done just as much today, and we're not swearing because of it."

That Sund could agree on even if the remark was filled with undertones like a Shyren's voice. Although perhaps not as much, because he let the remark just fly past him without recognizing it since it would've smashed through the window with a deafening sound had he done it.

No, the reason was because he noticed that the rest in the office were sleeping soundly.

Not as soundly as to be noticeable though, since that he would've heard amid the silence.

Or it could've been that the exhausted silence was deafening enough that he couldn't hear Sir Gerson, Frioke, and Kry sleep?

Either way, he felt a strange mix of both jealousy and annoyance seeing Kry's head nestled inside his folded arms, Gerson's head slouched over his chair's backrest, and Frioke's ears folded over her eyes. Their auras were already so sleepily when he'd arrived with the tea that he hadn't noticed them falling asleep.

Maybe he should've added more sugar to Kry's cup after all.

"Could you..." Sund's question was interrupted by another yawn which he tried to shake off, but couldn't. Kurant understood what he meant though, and conjured mellow flames at the three sleeping ones' cups so that their tea wouldn't cool off. "Thanks," said Sund after his yawn was finished. "Should we wake them up to get going with Cter and Idyll's future or should we join them in taking a nap for an hour or so?"

Sund received no answer to his question, only a gentle shuffling of parchment. He cocked his head over to see Kurant piling up scrolls to use as a pillow. She smiled playfully before letting the purple bags underneath her eyes drag her down onto the old and sacred texts where she closed her eyes.

Oh well, she'd done worse things.

With a third yawn Sund conjured a cube of ice which he let hover over his exposed neck having sat up on the window sill and leaned against its side. He made a small barrier around it that would fade away after an hour, and fell asleep within a minute.

"The King and Queen want–"

"Ah!"

"What?"

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Huh?"

It didn't take long before the liquid from the short percussion of porcelain cups smashing against the floor one after other pooled together in the middle of Gerson's office. All the different textures and tastes of tea blended together into what must've been an excellent concoction that would surely be enjoyed by any and all.

Unfortunately none were to keen to drink it, especially after Kry in his awakening state of startled panic evaporated the stain with his hazy fire. Left behind were glowing shards of porcelain which the entire room, including the confused Royal Guard messenger sent to check in on the progress regarding the human and monster friends, stared at until they were awake enough to realize that they should perhaps cool the pieces down.

After clearing his throat with pretend nonchalance Kry invoked a chilling whirlwind around the porcelain pieces, and addressed the confused canine in the squeaking door frame with his other hand failing to rub the tired out of his eyes. "Your business here, guard?"

The canine made sure to turn his head away from Sir Gerson in case seeing a higher-ranked officer yawning was insubordination. "The King and Queen has requested a full report regarding today's incident by the end of the day."

The office exhaled a collective sigh as they all understood that there wouldn't be any more naps for them for the rest of their exhaustive day.

"That includes a decision about a fourth Monster Mage," added the Royal Guard after courteously waiting for the sigh to subside. He was plenty aware of the danger that had occurred, and was almost asking out of his own curiosity more than his duty to the Monster Royals. He, as well as all the other guards in the palace, even all of them down in the city assuring that everything was calm, had done everything in their power to help with the situation.

But not even the Monster Mages were prepared for what had happened…

"Tell the King and Queen that they'll have a full report at sunset," ordered Gerson as he stood up with the game-piece firmly in his hand and clasped behind his back. "Of both the event and our decision about a fourth Monster Mage."

As the canine bowed his way out of the office he was stopped by an additional request from Frioke straightening her ears with her hands. "Send for some more tea for us as well. Dinner to boot. We're gonna need every minute left of the day for this."

"Certainly, Priestess."

The thick, wooden office door squeaked close evenly, closing in another joint sigh which howled together with Kry's blizzard. It almost came to a point where Sund would have been forced to seal the office with a magical barricade to prevent their combined, exhaustive auras from reaching outside Sir Gerson's office and plunging the entire castle into a languid state of existence.

"King and Queen worried or excited?" wondered Sund out loud. "Worried about today or excited about having another Monster Mage at their court?"

"You're suggesting we start with that point first?" pressed Kry with a quirked eyebrow. "Before we even have the events of today written down yet?"

With a shrug that lifted Sund's resting hand away from his cheek he quelled a yawn. "Guess that's what I'm doing then. If anything she'll be obliged to help us write the report, right?"

"He has a point," added Kurant. "Not gonna say if it's good or not. That's to be seen."

Carelessly, Kry tossed his removed glasses on the table to allow both his hands to rub against his face to somehow invoke a waking response. "We don't even know if what Cter did was impressive or not. We don't even know if it was her that did it and that it wasn't a lucky reaction of sorts. Perhaps it was just a consequence of the two auras inside Idyll calming down into a relaxed-enough state that they understood that they'd should be discrete from the other? Like oil layering itself on top of water after being violently shaken."

Kurant pressed down on one of her stacks of scrolls to see over it and speak to the priestess running a glowing talon over the silken sleeve she had borrowed to Cter. "Found anything in the sleeve, Frioke? Anything useful?"

"Only traces of Cter being determined to save her friend," answered the priestess with her ears dipping down in disappointment.

"On the account of her removing it before initiating the magic?"

Frioke nodded in response to Kry's ask. "Precisely." She slid the sleeve up her arm, but nothing majorly changed in her aura because of it. "So I can not say if it was due to Cter's expertise in this new branch of human magic that saved Idyll. Whether we decide to give her a purple cloak or not we should keep a close eye on both Cter and Idyll's magic for the immediate future to come. At the very least we should offer the human an apprenticeship with either Professor Leraull or Bonny Sallus. They both have expressed some mild frustration with their line of work and their associative magic. If it is truly a new type of magic she wields then we should sow that as quickly as possible."

The Monster Mages all shared a collective glance at the others. Worried ones. Moving-way-too-fast-for-comfort ones.

Kry was nice enough to be the one speaking against it as it was him that was tasked with making sure that before any step into uncharted territory was made there were appropriate clothes worn. "I'm gonna have to voice my reservations against that, Priestess. With all due respect." The due respect flew out of his mouth like a jumping frog. "We're not risking our most valuable assets in the human countries on a lucky accident that maybe, and only just maybe, could be an indication of further connection between human and monster. There are too many unknown variables at play here, and by golly am I barely comfortable having the human sleeping outside her prison cell. Had it not been for the potential whispers I would have urged we keep her there until we knew everything about today down to the imprint the human made on the chair we gave her to sit on."

Frioke nodded.

"And Professor Leraull, if anything, has expressed the opposite of a frustration with his magic being incorporated with his teachings. He sees it as a way to improve himself and his teaching, learning as he teach to be better at it. What mild frustrations have you heard from him, if I may be so direct?"

Direct, Kry was. Straight as an arrow loosened from the most taut of bowstrings. Maybe a bit too much, if the electrifying air had something to say about it. Frioke, however, took the direct, accusatory question calmly and with some thought to it. Sund recognized the tactic. He'd done it a few times before on the behest of Frioke's presence in his sleeve. Her and Gerson's. He knew he'd have to argue for Cter being kept close, and he did believe it in his soul that she should be employed. Maybe not as a Monster Mage per say, that would've been way too quick a decision. Since he was the Monster Mage given a combined monster presence in his sleeve he was the one that knew the most about the day's events, even if it was completely different from the Cooperative-Cooperative Connection he'd figured out on his own a decade or so ago.

Gerson was as ever just as stoic in his own aura as he was inside Sund's sleeve, even with Frioke's rather-hasty suggestion, only having walked over to the window and looked through it with his hands clasped behind his back with the game-piece that must've been representing Cter twirling between his fingers.

Frioke graciously stood up from her chair. "Frustrations about missing the tea and pastry served at Soul's School at exactly three 'o clock on the last day of the week," she informed Kry's narrowed eyes since he wasn't wearing his glasses anymore. "As I said," Frioke then smiled playfully, "mild ones."

"And Bonny?" quirked Kurant as Frioke passed her by behind. "With his latest report about the starting signs of a pandemic beginning to rise in Xoff I don't think it fits within your definition of mild, Priestess." Kurant's words were sharp and to the point. Even though she didn't turn around from her scrolls, they reached Frioke's ears more direct than Kry's previous question. "You seem to be treating this with less weight than usual, if I might add."

Frioke allowed that, which she represented with a nod. "I have complete trust in Bonny Sallus, dear Kurant. He managed to quell the previous signs, and now that he's been allowed more apprentices this one should just be a minor sniffle and fever, if you'll excuse the human expression." After an empathetic tilt down towards Kurant's knee Frioke met the Monster Mage's eyes softly. "How long until he requested you come visit him for a checkup, incidentally?"

Kurant straightened herself up to put less weight on her braced injury. "A year or two." It made Kry's aura flash with guilt for a second before Kurant met it with a warm embrace to remind him that she'd forgiven him for it. "It's good for five years, but I'm sure he's figured out something to extend it for longer."

There was something else in Kurant's aura though besides the warm embrace she made expressive towards Kry. Not a cold change, but not the same warmth she'd embraced Kry with either. Even Sir Gerson turned his head slightly towards it. Kurant sighed, and rolled up the scroll she was reading. The way she wringed it almost torn it apart.

"The monster's full name is Idyll Fech."

Fech…

Sund knew that name. Or maybe it was Frioke and or Gerson that knew of it. From where exactly though he couldn't figure out, from himself or from his sleeve. Kry couldn't either.

"She is the sister of Sarbor Fech."

Frioke and Gerson lifted their chins in recognition.

None of it was felt in Sund's sleeve though, so it must be just by name with no face to the...human? It did sound like a human name, but then again so did Idyll Fech…

"Was he the one that you said you had a–"

"No!" Kurant shot down immediately. "He wouldn't even recognize me should he meet me today. It was just serendipity that his first assignment was close to me, and I'm tempted to throw in my vote to employ the human as the Fourth Monster Mage just so that I can have another woman to talk to normally instead of you buffoons only knowing love as defined in those scrolls King Asgore used when he first talked to Queen Toriel."

"Oh that brings me back," snickered Sir Gerson while an amusing nostalgia spreading through his otherwise-subdued aura as he turned his head towards Krygino's tavern deep inside Jarasevo. "Doesn't it, Frioke?"

"That it does, my good Gerson," she replied with an equally wide giggle. "I still have the stretched-out robe he used when he snuck out of the castle."

Sund began to wonder if either of the Royal Councilors were taking the day's events seriously. He looked to Kry and Kurant for any help, but they were just as baffled as he was seeing Frioke and Gerson giggle like Royal Guards on leave after some hefty drinking. "Could I..."

"Could you?" Gerson repeated as he angled his head to the room from his distant gaze out the window. His eyelids were barely separated, hanging onto his face like loose laundry just about to slip off its string. "Need I remind you that we're all extremely tired and that we've managed to subvert a catastrophe? I'd sleep this off if I could," he lamented with a drained chuckle as he wearily looked over to the unwritten report on his desk, "but alas."

Before either of the Monster Mages could reply, if they even could in their bewilderment seeing Sir Gerson so...casual, the office door once again flung open, but with enough haste that the squeak wasn't audible.

"The human is missing!"

The…

"What!"

Sund pushed away from the wall he was leaning on with enough force that it threatened to tip over the castle. He was joined in his raised heartbeat and panicked expression by his colleagues flying off their chairs enough that it knocked them down.

"I w-was relieving the Royal Guard on duty when-n I noticed that the r-room was empty, sirs!" reported the pale-green fish monster with its ear-fins folded together and its conjured spear crackling and shaking along with its summoner's clacking teeth." I-I looked, b-but I couldn't f-find t-the human."

"Did you check the room of Idyll Fech?" confronted Kry as he slammed his glasses back on his face. "Was she there?"

"I-Idyll F-Fech?"

"The monster friend of the human," explained Kurant.

"I o-only k-know of t-the h-human and t-that she was t-to be guarded. Those w-were m-my orders, s-sirs!"

The fish monster aura was as transparent as air. With how much it was quaking with fear it looked like shimmering heat off a road during the height of summer. He was telling the truth, too scared to even begin to fathom lying.

The Monster Mages turned to Sir Gerson for advice. The human could be anywhere!

"She's obviously in Idyll Fech's room," said Sir Gerson with a casual calmness and a shrug wondering why the Monster Mages needed him to say it. "Where else would she be?"

T...True…

Where else would the human who's reason for being at the castle being her friend be if not at her friend's side?

With what Gerson said having been heard and the Monster Mages having rushed out of the office, Kurant following her colleagues a moment after having conjured a field of stasis around her knee brace, Gerson turned back to staring out the window and enjoying the sun on his face.

Like, honestly…

Where else would she have been?