The Queen of the Monsters stood up from the wooden chair with a last gingerly stroke on Idyll's right cheek.
The one not covered by raven feathers.
"Please, sit down, human," she offered with the same hand motioning to where she had just sat. The softly-lit room seemed to focus all of its scarce light towards the chair, illuminating its casual appearance despite having been used by a queen. To Cter it was as if she'd chosen the most run-of-the-mill chair she could find in the room to show to Cter that even the Queen was concerned for Idyll.
Not that Cter had imagined the Queen bringing her throne all the way through the castle. It was a sight that gave her courage which she sure needed.
Because not even with the Queen offering her seat to Cter did Cter take a step forward towards her friend. She stood in place just a step away from the door, frozen. Leaning back a bit, even, towards the door.
Cter was finally there! She had finally found her friend on her own accord! Idyll was healed! Idyll was no longer in mortal danger! Why couldn't Cter approach her? Why couldn't she…
Why…
Queen Toriel turned her head back to Idyll's gently slumbering body tucked inside her given bed. With both hands clasped on the front of her purple dress, Toriel blinked with understanding. "You blame yourself for this, don't you, human?"
"It is my fault," answered Cter through a throat-wrenching sob that had her entire body quake with its intensity. "I did this to her." Her right hand gripped her left wrist, wringing it harshly and painfully. "My best friend..."
"Your best friend," Toriel repeated with a subdued nod. Her long and heavy ears swept at the ruffled collar of her dress, settling into it like hands into deep pockets. They blended in with the fabric, both its texture and color, as Toriel turned to look at the quivering human hurting herself in self-afflicted repentance. "Your best friend who last thing she needs to see right now is her best friend in hurt." The delicate emphasis of the Queen's words compelled Cter to release her left wrist. The Queen leaned over to Idyll's sleeping body and covered the monster's ears. "Breathe, child," she then encouraged towards Cter.
It was breathing not fit to inhale and exhale in the presence of a Queen, not even in the presence of the most peasant and brash of farmer either, yet it was the breathing Cter needed. Her voice cracked worse than the cup of tea she had dropped on the balcony floor. Her chest felt more heavy than the comforting weight of the wettened towel. Her eyes strained more than they had in her prison cell with the even dimmer light.
She'd not breathed for the entire day! Not in the prison cell, not when she removed Romrom from Idyll, not in her room, and not with King Asgore. All that she'd been able to inhale was the moment and what laid ahead. Never what she needed to catch herself up on. The emptiness in her soul was what she had been deprived of. Not only the connection to a monster.
But of not being able to stop and think for a second to let herself catch up with what was happening. It had begun the night before when she'd woken up after Idyll gave Cter her soul, and it had never stopped.
Until when the Queen asked Cter to.
With patience only afforded to by a Queen, Toriel shielded Idyll from hearing her friend's desperate wailing. Her lament was plenty loud in her aura, blooming wide through the sheer strength of her emotions. It was what Cter had planned, after all. Even is she was aware of it inside her it still took everything out of her to release it.
Her legs caved after the first minute, and Cter sank down with her expensive dress scarping against the old and worn wooden door. She curled up with her arms hugging her legs tightly, and with her forehead pushing against her kneecaps. It felt…
Oh how it felt.
Like how Cter had never felt before.
It didn't take long until her throat was sore with gravel, and her shoulders were sore with tension. Not long until she felt a tiredness sweep her over, causing her faint. She wanted to fall asleep and wake up next to Idyll. Wake up next to her family. To both their families.
Cter flinched with a guttural gasp as a warm hand was placed on the back of her head. The hand absorbed the flinch, as well as the last couple of sobs Cter's throat could manage before it clamped up completely. The hand moved over her hair and head, caressing it gingerly. "You need some water, human," came a tender and motherly remark. "Can you walk over to the chair on your own?"
Yes, Cter could. She stood up without saying a word. It'd come out as a raspy cough had she tried, so she didn't bother to. The warm hand bent so that the back of its large and fuzzy fingers ran down Cter's cheek. "You're strong, human," said Toriel with nothing but truth to her voice. "Stay determined for your friend in this last moment."
Cter would. She dried her eyes with her right arm like she'd always done for the past year and a half she'd lived in Jarasevo with her best friend. It'd be the same afterwards. It'd be just the same! That's why Cter was in that room!
Water first though.
That she needed.
The fact that Cter could feel the Queen's warmth still lingering like her magic would on the chair went right over Cter's head as she sat down on it. Her entire right side that was closest to Idyll was tingling too much with anxiety for her to notice it. She couldn't look at Idyll just yet, instead following the Queen walking to the other side of the room where a jug, basin, and a couple of chalices were placed. The way she poured it reminded Cter of someone. The way the Queen lifted the jug up to then come down to top it off…
"Still in my wrists even after all these years," the Queen chuckled as Cter's staring nibbled at her neck. The human averted her eyes shamefully, but Toriel didn't voice any reprimands. "I'm sure you've heard the stories, human."
"I've heard...stories," Cter admitted as she accepted the chalice Queen Toriel held out for her to take. It hurt Cter's throat to say it, even if she meant nothing by it. Her throat was so graveled even a careful whisper like that was enough to have her taste blood. The water first chafed and clogged inside her clamped throat, but by the second drink it could help ease the pain with its cold flow. "Only stories," she repeated to feel if it would hurt.
It did, but only mildly.
"Would it make you feel better if you told some to me?" Toriel offered as she sat down with her own chalice tucked between her knees. Even as it pushed down on her dress it didn't disturb it in the slightest. No wrinkles or anything similar. "That's only if you want, human. If you feel like you're ready to help your friend then I'll be here with you for that if you choose. If you feel like you want some more time then I'll be here with you for as long as you need."
Cter opened her mouth to say something against that. She had to! The Queen didn't need to be there with her.
Her Queen didn't…
Her Queen…
Oh.
So that was when she decided. The precise moment.
When Cter went from monster mage to proper Monster Mage.
Queen Toriel only lifted her hand in response. "I'm here to make my decision about you, Cter," she explained with a teacher's look in her eyes. "You've already presented your case to my beloved Asgore, human. Here is where I make mine. You may ask me to leave whenever you want should you want to be alone with your friend. This is between you and her, however I would like to be here primarily to keep the two of you safe should something unexpected happen, again. My decision comes second to you and your friend's safety, you have my promise as a Queen for that, human." Queen Toriel raised her pinky finger as she drank from her chalice. "Regardless of whether your employment as the fourth Monster Mage goes through or not, the two of you are still my subjects, and should be protected as such by me."
With confidence that shone like the midday sun, Toriel put down her chalice on a nearby table while at the same time crossing her legs and planting her clasped hands on top of them. "I didn't make Gorey promise that I'd be schooled and trained just as hard as he was so that I could be an equal protector of the monsters as he'd be just because it'd look good in the papers, you know?"
Cter had heard about that in the stories, yes. Toriel picked up the recognition with a pleased smile that'd been prideful on any other mouth other than the King and Queen's. "He'll have to catch up to me one day."
Yeah...sure.
If the Queen's plan was for Cter to lose her thread so that her mind would move away from Idyll for the moment then the Queen was indeed successful with that. Cter didn't know what to do next with all the thoughts clashing together in her head. Worry about Idyll on one side, confusion over the sudden smug aura from Toriel on the other. With rhythmic taps on her chalice, Cter sighed into it. Her breath pushed against the water's surface, creating ripples which distorted her reflection. It's how she felt inside, so it was appropriate that she saw it to boot.
A few minutes of Cter's reflection waving between distorted, and settling down in-between her sighs, Queen Toriel broke the silence with a quiet cough. "How do you plan on waking her up?" The question was quite direct. "You don't have any magic at your disposal, so how are you gonna connect with your friend's soul?"
Cter had no idea how she'd connect with Idyll's soul. Not a single clue as to how. "I don't know," she answered the Queen unsatisfactory, mostly to herself. A shake of her head preceded her lifting up her left arm to inspect its sleeve. "Despite everything, I feel that I've become more human today. I think I was as close to a monster as a human was ever yesterday night, but now I'm human after all. I don't have a sleeve, I feel alone in my soul, and I'm wearing a robe made by tailors from Xoff, a human country."
"Not to reinforce your self-deprecating point, but it does suit you very well, Cter," Toriel wished well. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forwards with one of her large, opened hand towards Cter's left arm held across her chest. "If I may? It is so seldom I get to see a human in such splendid clothing. Forgive my esurient behavior."
Cter would if she knew what it meant.
"My, my, my," Toriel hummed with motherly pride and gently exploring fingers which lifted and turned Cter's arm around akin to a windmill. She was fine with an attendee ghost changing her undergarments, so what was the Queen straightening her robe over her legs in comparisons? Cter wouldn't deny that she didn't feel a sense of enjoyment from the attention the Queen gave her and the forest-green robe which draped over her skin like the crowns of evergreen trees.
Goose bumps, that was.
"Just look at how it flows down your shins. Like a waterfall with emeralds. You wouldn't mind standing up and turn around for me?"
Cter did as asked to, stepping a small circle with her feet for the Queen who clasped her hands dreamily.
"And bow?"
Cter lifted up the edges of her robe and dipped her head for the Queen.
"Oh, what a wonderful display. Thank you, Cter. Your robe only needs a bit of work underneath your arms to allow you some more range of motion, but otherwise it is as if the tailors from Xoff made it just for you!"
There was something hidden behind Toriel's words. Something that had Cter lifting her head after sitting down again. The motion made her feel what the Queen meant, a slightly uncomfortable tug that chafed her armpit. Toriel lifted her head with a gentle smile towards the human. "Do you know what the Monster Mages truly are, Cter?"
The implication in Toriel's words had Cter shake her head. No, not if Queen Toriel put it that way. She nodded for Cter to sit down again, and held her hand all the way down. "The Monster Mages," began Toriel as she cupped Cter's hand between hers, "are gifts to us monsters from the human kingdoms. Gifts of the utmost trust between our kingdoms. The Monster Mages are not only a statement that the humans believe and put value on us monsters, but also vice versa. For every magical reaction summoned by the humans have an equal action from the monsters back at them. Human magic works on larger scales too, that is what I'm trying to say here, Cter."
The Queen was doing well in that.
"What make the Monster Mages such an interesting part of the exchange is that they're humans acting on the monster's behalf. The exchange, on the surface, doesn't become equivalent, as it is humans for the reaction and humans for the action as well. This goes against what you've been taught at Soul's School, and yes even Asgore and I say the abbreviated name for it. It goes against the fundamental structure of what makes human magic possible." Queen Toriel raised three fingers for Cter to see. "Yet we have three of them." She added one more. "Perhaps even four in a short while. How come?"
Cter hoped that the question was rhetorical, because she didn't really have a clue. Nobody knew why the Monster Mages were the Monster Mages. They just were. The most powerful mages, but how they became so nobody knew outside Jarasevo Castle.
She was in Jarasevo Castle though, wasn't she?
"Because they're monsters." Toriel moved her hand to her chest. "In here they are." Then she threw it up in the air as the guilt of her lie took her over. "Well, they were at one point monsters in their soul, that is. You won't find a white heart inside them, but you feel them as monsters. You must've done it while you saved your friend earlier today, no?"
Cter was a bit too busy with it at the time. "I didn't think about it," she shrugged, chafing her armpits a bit more. Hopefully they wouldn't remember that she'd run as fast as she could just a couple of minutes before. "I was thinking about...Idyll."
"That's understandable, Cter." The Queen returned her hand over Cter's. "Have you thought about that they've never referred to themselves as humans, have you? Even I've stopped calling you that since you decided not but a minute or so ago."
A gasp shot out of Cter.
"I'm the Queen of the Monsters, Cter," Toriel reminded with a playful bounce of her eyebrows. "I know my subjects when I see them." She cast a curious look over to Idyll. "Strangely, I feel quite distant to your friend, however I believe that is because she is in the state she's in." The look returned to Cter, albeit softened and caring yet again. "You, Cter, have been a monster. More so, you're more monster than the rest of the Monster Mages." It transformed again to the playful and bouncy, with Toriel lifting her hand and putting it up to the side of her muzzle facing the door. "Just don't tell them, please. I'm sure they're well aware of it with how each subsequent generation of humans have a greater affinity towards monsters, but it's not necessary to remind them of it, is it?"
The playful questions swept by Cter like a breeze. "I'm a..." She lifted her free hand up to her chest. "I was a monster?" Her eyes narrowed and her face contorted into disbelief. "I don't feel like a monster." She lowered her head. "I barely feel like a human..."
It was with a hand glowing faintly with green that Toriel lifted and placed over Cter's chest where she had her human hand. She gasped as she felt a whirl of dancing magic fill her soul. Not only filled, but made whole! The void was but a memory! Cter's eyes exploded open as if it was the first time she'd opened them, and she met the caretaking and comforting eyes of her Queen smiling ever so softly at her. "You do to me, Cter." The Queen left her magical presence with Cter as she stroked the blossoming cheeks. "Both monster, and human."
"W-what...w-what did you do?" The brash nature of Cter's question would make her cringe in the future thinking back at it, but in the moment it wasn't brash enough.
"I healed you, Cter," answered Toriel. "The part of you that is now monster. You're still monster, that much I understand now. Because of that, you need hope. That's what us," She pointed back and forth between Cter and her, "us monsters live on. Today must've been horrible for you. I do beg of you to find it in you to forgive us for today. We didn't know, and you didn't know. That should have been our priority, but fear makes fools of us all. It grips with fingers cold and steeled to never let go."
That...Cter knows all too well. How it chokes and takes over the mind and soul. Makes you do things you'd never do. Like…
She looked over to her sleeping friend.
Like taking in too much without stopping.
The Queen joined her subject in observing the duvet silently rise and fall. "But we'll move forward from it, won't we, Cter?"
Cter nodded, but not without shedding a tear which had built up for what felt like forever. Before it could begin its travel down her burning cheek however, it was brushed off by the soft touch of Toriel's thumb.
"It's been so long since I last did this, and even longer since I felt these types of cheeks blossom." She sighed with content flowing through her nostrils. "Oh how jealous I am of you humans with cheeks like these," followed an embarrassed chuckle. "Thank you for this, Cter."
Thank...her?
"It brings me such hope for the future," Toriel explained to Cter's brow sunk in slight confusion why the Queen was thanking her. "Such hope only possible in dreams for today, but perhaps not for tomorrow. Tomorrow the hope might become reality, and how splendid a world we'll live in then. We live in such a fantastic time."
Yes…
Cter looked over to her friend again.
...Fantastic times.
"Times when we," Queen Toriel again indicated between her and Cter, "we monsters are given gifts without us knowing that they were such to begin with. When that robes of yours..." She paused for a split second. "Eh, what the fluff, of course it's yours." The tongue she said it with was not befit a queen, but in her excitement she must've gone back to who she was before she ascended the purple.
"Asgore already gave it to me," Cter sheepishly revealed while scratching her cheek and chafing a bit more. "He said so, anyway."
"Well we're in agreement with it," smiled Toriel. "It suits you so well, Cter, it's almost magical." She chuckled at her own little joke with her hand over her mouth. "Anyways, as I was saying before I interrupted myself, we were given the gift of the robe from a human delegate from Xoff coming over to pay tribute. None of our humans, or monsters for that matter, could wear it, so we hung it aside until someone could, be it monster or human. How fun that it would fit a Monster Mage. Even more so, a Monster Mage which we've had near us for almost as long as it. A gift who came to us without us knowing that she'd be one. A gift wrapping herself in another gift, and delivering herself."
Well, not really now, did she?
"Yes, forgive me," the Queen apologized with a long inhale to calm herself down. "That was too excited of me." With a tired turn she laid her soft eyes upon the rising and falling cover on the bed. "Forgive an old Queen for that, would you?" Then back for a glance towards Cter. "Both of you?" She and Cter then returned to Idyll. "The first time I heard what had happened my mind raced towards the worst that had happened. Even now I don't know the details of what I thought was the worst, but I remember Asgore being afraid too about what the Monster Mages would find. A Queen being fearful of a situation is serious, but a King too? He demanded from Gerson earlier today. He didn't ask Gerson, he demanded. The distance his look fared to when I told him what he'd done was something I hope I never see again."
Cter looked away in guilt and shame.
"The luck we had that it happened at our doorstep instead of somewhere further away cannot be understated. Another step in the Cooperative Connection..." Toriel breathed in long and deep before exhaling. "It's been ages since I had Prince Soulay on my lap that warm summer's end's night," the Queen whispered with remembrance glistening in her eyes as the stars did that night. Those glistening stars which she explained to the blind Prince Soulay, the memory of which she then weaved into a nightgown for the Prince to take home with him. "I thought that would be all I did for human magic, but here I sit at the cusp of another step taken for it."
Queen Toriel stood up with a respectful exhale. "It is not mine to take though." She moved to rest her hand on Cter's shoulder. "One more thing, Cter, and I hate to have waited so long to say it." Her fingers squeezed ever so subtly. "The Idyll that wakes up will not be the same Idyll that you last spoke to, Cter."
"I...know."
She did, all this time she did.
But confronting it?
That she wished she'd never had to.
"The monster that is you is because of Idyll. When you gave back her soul it wasn't all of it. The feathers on her cheek is that of the other presence, isn't it?"
"It is," Cter answered distantly. "They're Romrom's feathers. My grandma."
"Romrom made your sleeve?"
"Yes."
Toriel rubbed her thumb across Cter's shoulder for comfort. "Nobody can tell how much Romrom Idyll will be. Her magic has changed, which makes it difficult to sense her aura. She's not used to it herself. Her new magic." The rubbing stopped. "It's up to you to make this stumble into a proper step, Cter." Toriel's hand was lifted off Cter's shoulder. "Save your friend, Monster Mage."
The door was closed, leaving Cter alone with Idyll. Queen Toriel's words barely had time to settle before Cter jumped closer with her chair to the bed. She reached underneath the silky cover to grab her friends hand which she gripped hard. "Idyll..." Cter whispered through a sob as she placed the limp claws against her forehead. "I'm so sorry." She moved it down to her mouth. "I'm so sorry, for everything."
That was all Cter said. Idyll couldn't hear, so it was just for Cter's own conscious she was saying her apologies. "We'll finally drink together on the castle roof," Cter comforted her friend as she placed the limp hand against her chest. Inside, Cter's soul began to radiate. It filled her simple and small human aura, despite being a monster.
It was that monster which would be how Cter woke her friend up though. It would be that which led her borrowed emotions over and back where they belonged.
"First round's on me."
And she pushed the hand into her.
"Together."