"Breakfast before the morning jog?"

Sund's casually thrown question preceded his heavy sit onto the dining hall chair. Normally the sound would've been drowned out among the myriad of similar heavy sits from the rest of the Royal Guard sitting down to eat the day's first meal, but instead the screech of the monster-made chair echoed throughout the empty dining hall with its cutting sound. Kry and Kurant both winced against the sound, as did Sund after his body froze from being at the center of the sound.

"Ow," he muttered as he bored a finger into his ear. "Guess that helps me wake up just as well as jogging." With the flat of his hand he then pushed against his ear to hear if it still rang, which it did. "Not that you'd know," he added sneakily through an exhale and a subsequent cough.

Kry and Kurant both quirked an eyebrow each towards Sund before returning to their scrolls. No angry leer followed though, which was a bit of a surprise. Sund took it positively though. He'd taken the angry leers positively too since they followed the day before what with all the castle being under crisis and all that.

Would be nice if they'd eat breakfast together following Cter's employment. Usually the Monster Mages schedules would deviate more and more the further the day went, so catching up as Kry and Kurant left the dining hall while Sund entered it was really the one time a day the three could talk casually. With Cter being the fourth one perhaps they'd have similar schedules in the morning leaning up to lunch from that day forward?

And if not then Sund would at least get a partner to jog with during the mornings. Cter was in good shape. She'd been walking for her entire workdays while she was her own interdependently employed human mage so she wouldn't have any problem keeping up with the morning jog of the Royal Guard. Perhaps too Kurant would remember that her chiseled farmer-girl physique had softened during her time as a Monster Mage, although if that was good or not Sund didn't dare bet on.

After all, it was not Kurant's fault that her body had softened up…

It took some internal screaming at his eyeballs for Sund not to let his eyes wander off to Kry, who luckily enough was busy with writing what looked to be a revaluation of sorts.

"Have you gotten your glasses fixed so that you can see that Cter actually has potential?" Sund shoot over towards his colleague with a smile plastered both on his face and in his aura. It brought a subdued snicker from Kurant, but not so much from Kry. As he sensed Kry's sleeve beginning to flare up, Sund let the lines on his sleeve light up a sunflower-yellow and spring tall barriers from their rigid stretches. His soul-shaped earrings began to skit and dangle in response to his magical focus.

While he easily could have chosen the more natural and organic lines to have Frioke and Gerson's memories and will to protect the Monster Royals take root in and spawn his barriers, it made for a more crystalline sound with the more angular lines. They chimed a bit more in harmony as Kry's flicked ball of fire crashed into the white barriers sprouting from Sund's sleeve.

The large, empty dining hall resonated with the impact. A beautiful melody to contrast the violent shattering which shards provided a follow-up trickle of higher notes. Like the tapping of hail against a roof, but more magical, for lack of a better word.

Nat that it was actually lacking in its description. Magical sounds born out of a magical event. Who could've mistaken it?

"Hey!"

The head chef of the Royal Kitchen, turns out.

"You knock that off!" the fire monster continued with her flames raging and licking the wall above the window separating the kitchen and the dining hall. The wall above was discolored due to the heat from all the previous time she'd done it. Not blackened though as it would've been with a human-made flame. "I thought the new hire had slipped with all the plates, dammit!" Even more so as her bright-orange flames turned towards blue, temporarily blending her in with the stains of brown sauce on her apron as she shifted color. "Now what do you want?" The head chef's flames stayed blue despite her question having seemingly taken on a more lax and service-focused tone to it.

Sund got to...choose? He was given a choice? He didn't even remember being give a choice for breakfast before. Naturally his tongue stumbled inside his mouth as his mind rushed to think of an answer.

"Fruit salad, bread, and hard-boiled eggs, please," Kry ordered while he rolled up his scroll and began cleaning his glasses.

"How many and with or without shells?" the head chef returned while slumping down and leaning on a fiery forearm from which she'd rolled up her sleeve. Even from as far away that Sund sat with his colleagues he could see the outlines of muscles on the head chef's exposed arm. Like partings of hair emphasizing the shape of the skull did the combed flames emphasize the shape of muscles. A trait the head chef had picked up from her upbringing in Hjearta and serving the human royal court there. "Any specific fruits or breads?"

"Two eggs, with shells, and whatever you have at hand," Kry answered as he made the shape of a pineapple with flames changing color like a rotating rainbow around its contours. "I'll eat whatever you serve."

A spark crackled loudly from the head chef snapping a finger against Kry. "Flirting like that won't work on me, Monster Mage," she laughed. "However, I'll see what I can find in some forgotten crate somewhere." Before the subtle change of her blue flames could visibly turn into a pinkish tint the head chef leaned into the kitchen again to bark some orders relevant to Kry's order.

Kry replaced his glasses onto the bridge of his nose a bit further down purposely so that he would have to push them up with his hand. Hidden from the head chef, but not from Sund, he chuckled at his success, and dismissed the pineapple with a joyful crackle from its top. The fur on his sleeve's Deltarune relaxed from having stood up, settling back into the familiar shape. Streaks of fading blue trailed behind his sleeve as he lowered his arm down.

"I'll have some porridge with some nuts added, please," Kurant ordered after the head chef poked her flames out again like a torch being swung, having settled down to her more normal orange color. "Do we still have Xoff coffee or are we waiting on that still?"

"We have in stock the kinda coffee you can drink and not the type that you can't drink at the moment," informed the head chef with a faux and sarcastic roll of her wrist while she pretended to think. "Tea's always plenty."

As it always was, yes.

"Guess I'll have the coffee I can drink which is in stock," Kurant conceded with a sigh. "Could you then instead pour some cinnamon on top of the porridge and give it a quick burn?" She folded her arms defiantly to challenge the raised flame-brow over the head chef's eye. "It brings out the spice more," came an explanation which was delivered via an accused shrug. Kurant held her neutral expression against the head chef leaning forwards on her flame-muscle-defined-and-exposed forearms.

"And why can't you just burn the spice yourself?"

With a confident smirk Sund knew that Kurant had caught the head chef right into her trap.

"Because it tastes much better with your flames."

The muscles became harder to distinguish amid the shift again to a pink hue that took over the head chef's flames. Like a bubble pushing away water as it rises from below, the pink flames whirled up towards the head chef's...head, and blossomed like a rose. Before it could reach her fists though she straightened her back and slammed one onto the bottom of the window's frame, leaving behind a scorched mark among many others.

"Dammit," she cursed while laughing. "I already said that flirting wouldn't work!"

Apparently it did, however.

Sund's mind was caught in the middle of two racing thoughts. On the one side he had to figure out what he wanted for breakfast whereas on the other he had to figure out how to flirt with head chef to get the specifics he wanted. He still had some time as the head chef leaned into the kitchen again to bark an order about Kurant's order, but she'd be back before he could finish even one of those thoughts.

That only made Sund's mind race even more!

"And you?"

No answer.

"And you?" the head chef tried again with an accompanying whistle. "Third Monster Mage. Barrier Boy!"

Barrier Boy?

Sund's head snapped over to his colleagues so fast the souls on his earrings slapped against his cheek. Both Kry and Kurant had suddenly taken a strange and deep interest to the scrolls they'd brought with them. So enamored and curious were they that they had to shove their faces into their respective parchments.

"Important plans and matters involving the Monster Mage trade, ey?" Sund let flow from his tongue like poison. It was what Kurant and Kry had explained their breakfast sessions as containing.

So there wouldn't be any trouble for them to reaffirm that truth while facing him directly, right?

Apparently there would be, as the parchments began shaking with how much the two Monster Mages had to read them thoroughly.

Oh well, no matter.

Sund has some names up his sleeve as well. Quite easy to overhear some juicy ones among the rest of the Royal Guard as the morning jog passed by the dining hall windows.

"Oi!" the head chef hollered with both her hands cupped around her mouth. "Tryin' to work 'ere!"

"Sorry," Sund apologized while lifting his hand to help emphasize. He balled his opened hand into a fist with his thumb extended towards his two giggling colleagues. "Just had to check something with my friends Fauxgore and Kuriosa here."

The flames on the head chef's exploded on high equally proportionally to Kurant and Kry's shoulders dropping low. "Yes!" the fire monster cheered with her arms thrown up and her white sleeves sliding down to show even more of her well-flamed beef that no other chef ever could take pride in cooking. "Finally! Thank you, Barrier Boy! Finally I have something against them!"

Kurant and Kry rolled up their scrolls in utter defeat painted almost glowingly on their faces. Not as glowing as the head chef's mood though, as she danced with two pairs of wooden ladles in her loose hands to make a suitable percussion for her celebration. "What do you want for breakfast, Barrier Boy?" the head chef offered with her clacking ladles pointed over Sund's way while her shoulders and hip moved along with their beating rhythm. "A-ny-thing you wa-a-ant I'll g-get for yoooooou!" her voice sang out. "Be-cause now I don't have to kow-chicka-tow to..."

Her ladles slowed down as she stopped to recall the names. To her dismay she'd lost them as quickly as she's gained them.

Seeing pity, and also an additional chance to poke some fun at his colleagues, Sund opened his mouth to kindly remind the head chef of Kurant and Kry's more fitting names. "Faux-" His mouth was stuffed with a purple-glowing napkin held in stasis by Kurant, preventing him from telling the truth. "Not so fun when it's the other way, is it?" said Sund in his throat. However through the bundled-up napkin in his mouth it lost some of its clarity. "Na s fu we 's e oer ay,'s I?"

Evidently not with how Kurant acted ignorant to her magic and what it did. Kry even less so, even if he kept one eye locked onto Sund to see what he was doing. There was also that faint-blue glow to his sleeve's lines as well. He was cooking up something too in case Sund broke loose of Kurant's magic. There was no mistake about that.

Something that would bypass Sund's barrier magic for sure. The fireball was just a literal throwaway, nothing more. Kry was more skilled in magic than Sund was, even if Sund's magic was of his own creation. While Sund was a few generations younger than Kry there was only so much the gap between years more of Monster Mage experience could be closed with a greater affinity for magic. Sund would never suggest such. His respect towards Kry as both a friend and a mentor in magic was one of the reasons that he managed to be the first to realize and develop a magic of his own and earn his place as a Monster Mage.

However though, Sund also knew that his friendship with his colleagues was strong enough to weather anything.

Be it a borderline catastrophe.

Or Sund standing up and reminding both Kry and Kurant that he can easily outrun them.

Which he did.

It took the length of half of the long dining hall tables before Sund managed to get the napkin out of his mouth. On the way there he continued throwing up barriers around him to block the chairs aiming to swoop him up controlled by Kurant. Between those Kry's sweeps of blue and orange magic forced Sund to almost trip himself to not be caught still in the orange and immediately move to a halt when long horizontal bars of blue moved through the legs of the chairs and tables to try and sweep his feet.

"Just yell the names, Barrier Boy!" the head chef shouted while motioning to the flying chairs hovering in various angles of rotation above Sund to bide their time and sweep him up.

True, Sund could've easily done it with the stamina he'd built up during the years of him being the only Monster Mage participating in the morning jog. Every single morning he'd done it.

Interacting with his colleagues the way he did though? God forbid using their magic to play like young monsters learning magic? God further forbid doing it the day after they all three thought it would be the end for human magic? No. No, they all three needed that. They needed to have some joint brevity to come back down for the day before. Simmer down with their tension, and just have some fun.

Throwing chairs via magic at each other. Sending strikes of colorful magic that cause concussions through their bones with a flu-like echo. That kinda fun. Fun only mages can understand, and fun only Monster Mages could invoke as casually.

Because damn were they all three close to falling apart…

Damn Sund was so close to losing his friends and his new country he'd put his life down for to protect. Same with the two others. They'd…

No, wait.

Not the two others. Not anymore.

In his thoughtful pause an orange bar summoned by Kry sweeps through Sund's legs with a jolt that cramps his legs up, causing him to fall. Through the magical instinct he's built up over the years, Sund summoned an angled barrier which he uses to slide down on. I was not a gracious and proud way to break his fall, but it was an effective one. The rather pathetic sound of his robe gliding against the somewhat gravely material of his hastily-formed barrier brought him no favors as he was deposited as a pile of limbs at the bottom of the magical slope.

"Fauxgore and Kuriosa!" Sund spouted from underneath his folded armpit over him. He heard the head chef thanking him after a dramatic sigh. "Also I'd like some eggs in a nest like an omelet, please." With some effort Sund managed to figure out how to angle himself to get up without strangling himself with his own robe. He brushed himself off before replacing the nearby chairs that tripped over with him

"As in vegetables and some meat?" wondered the head chef with some gesturing. "Shells as garnish too?"

Sund extended his thumb along with a wide smile. "Please, and thank you." He got a fiery and feisty one back from the head chef before she disappeared into the window with energy crackling around her.

"Alright, new hire!" she sang out. "Fire up those hands and let me see what you can do!"

New hire? Must be Idyll Fech. Sund, Kry, and Kurant were with her the evening before to observe her capabilities with her new magic. Suffice to say it was both a treat to his soul and to his nose. That it all just seemed to have worked out so well was both extremely relieving and extremely confusing at the same time for him. He felt confident in assuming that Kry and Kurant felt the same too, even if they were busy muttering and giving Sund narrowed glares that had their eyes twinkle with their respective color. Sund sent them back a colorless and raised eyebrow along with his index finger running back and forth underneath his nostrils.

The confusion he felt drained as relief took him over completely. Yes, he had the length of a handful of tables to put up as he made his way back to his colleagues, but with each one the reality of everything being just so full of levity became clearer and clearer to him. His smile widened with each chair he put up.

"Oh yeah, sorry!"

Sorry? Why would the head chef be sorry? It didn't sound like she shouted towards Sund or Kry and Kurant either. Confusion again took its small seed, which had Sund turning his head around to the kitchen window. The head chef again poked her flames out, but with her eyes looking towards the entrance.

"What's for breakfast for you?"

For whom?

Sund swiveled his head over his other shoulder.

And turned pale almost as much as Kurant.

"Uh..." said the third colleague at the dining hall's large doors. Her stupor only allowed her to blink and catch up with the question asked to her. "What?"

The head chef scoffed a chuckle in the form of a spat flame. "Ha! Oh you have a lot waiting for you then, Monster Mage!" The chuckle turned into a brash laughter. "I'll just have the new hire figure something out for you! Pretty sure she knows what you like!"

The pale of Sund's face turned red as he realized…

Cter had seen everything. Her blinks echoed, they were so heavy.

Absolutely everything.