The hovering light illuminated the many, varied-sized cracks ranging from the spaces between the few worn-wooden tables placed systematically to the cracks between the many books and scrolls placed in a similar-systematic way. The books had more of a focus on being efficient with the volume of their volumes though. The light flickered in unison with its conjurer's blinks to moisten the dried eyes that had already spent one and a half hour reading during the early morning.

"Oh, greetings, Cter," welcomed Frioke with her ears perking up seeing the newest Monster Mage take in the surrounding study. "I am pleased you managed your way here without any issues."

Cter chose not to mention the knocked-over suit of armor she allegedly pushed over as she took a corner a bit too greedily. The bright mood of Frioke's gentle smile contrasted so well with the subdued and thoughtful decor which had a contemplative wooden-brown to it from all the furniture. "Thanks," she answered with a nod to her new magic teacher. "It is much bigger on the inside than it looks to be from the outside." Cter had her guesses as to why.

To begin with there wasn't a single visible window on the walls covered with bookcases ranging from monster-made to both Xoff and Hjearta designed ones filled with enough books and scrolls that taking one out would make all the other bookcases explode. That Frioke was so casually breathing despite the fact that even the slightest misaligned exhale would be enough to dislodge and fill the room with thousands of books traveling at high velocity gave Cter both confidence and equal amounts of fear.

"If you want I can give you a tour around here before we begin the lesson?" came a friendly suggestion followed by the screech of a wooden chair being pushed back. Cter instinctively turned her head towards the sound, brushing some of her hair out of the way as she did. What with it being recently washed as she was about to have her first Monster Mage lesson she did want to make a good first impression.

A good first impression that she meant for, that is.

Not one that she didn't mean to, as was the case with her first first impression. Her second first impression seemed to fare a bit better as what she received was a smile greeting and welcoming her rather than a stern and angry furrow accusing her.

She much more preferred the prior one.

"I see that you have opted for the hat," Frioke chuckled lightly to herself while moving her sphere of candle-warm light over towards Cter. "Seems like you picked one with cut-out holes for top-mounted ears though." Cter noticed as well as the light shone down the ear holes above her and down her cheeks. It gave Frioke a pause which she hummed through with a coarse scratch on her blue-scaled chin. "Although..." Her eyes narrowed in delight while she nodded. "It does illuminate the flush on your cheeks, so I wouldn't exactly say that you picked the wrong hat." A final claw dragged down her chin as she looked up at the top of the hat. "It must've been squished for quite some time though." Her hand which had just scratched her chin lit up a bright purple haze. "Do you mind?"

Cter didn't. "Go ahead." She hadn't noticed the cut-out holes in the pointy hat as it was more an afterthought than a planned addition to her attire as she dressed herself. If they weren't planning for her to wear the hats then why did they put them in her wardrobe with the purple robes then? While she did find the crumpled tip to be endearing in a way, she also understood why it would be seen as more proper to have the hat be standing tall and rigid.

She was also curious whether or not it would make a flicking sound against the top of a door frame.

Maybe a bit too childishly curious.

With a soft flop Cter felt Frioke's stasis magic straighten out her hat to a stiff peak. She probed at the top with a finger. It stung her as she tapped down on it. An amused giggle was exhaled through Frioke's lizard-like nose seeing the Fourth Monster Mage suckle on her finger after touching her hat. "As sharp as King Asgore's horns," the Royal Councilor declared with a waggle of her index finger surrounded with stasis magic. With a final flick she raised up what Cter had poked flat. "It is good that you've chosen to wear it even for just today, Cter. If anything than to remind the other three about it."

Frioke motioned with her opened hand for Cter to follow her, but stopped after just one step that had her ears spinning around before her head did. "Oh, and what I said about King Asgore's horns wasn't just as a metaphor, although I guess it will still be one, but it is more closer to literal than not."

"Mhm," Cter voiced just as an acknowledgment that she heard what Frioke said, but not necessarily understood. With her hat sharp enough to cut through wood she made a conscious effort to not nod. "I see."

"We are thinking of commissioning a new batch of these hats worn by the magical councils at the human courts." Frioke paused for effect. "However with two tips instead of just one."

"Like King Asgore's horns?" Cter hazarded a guess.

To be fair it wasn't really a hazardous guess with all the context clues and Frioke's expressive face shining brighter with excitement than her conjured light did. Nevertheless Cter was indeed correct in her guess, which Frioke showed by snapping her fingers surprisingly loudly for what scales would allow.

"And as Queen Toriel's horns as well, of course," Frioke added despite both Cter and her knowing that. "Kurant will bring the idea up to Xoff's court as she departs next week for the country. She was quite adamant about wanting to travel there. Something to do with the coffee there, I think?"

Cter wouldn't have known. She didn't really drink coffee. Like everyone else, except the country of Xoff and Kurant apparently, she fancied tea above coffee. Fancy being quite the apt term as with her Monster Mage status she also had access to Golden Flower tea as fresh as what the Monster King and Monster Queen drank themselves. It had only been a few days, but Cter had already managed to develop a habit of drinking tea while she sat in her window looking out over Jarasevo and the rolling landscape beyond it in the light of the morning sun.

Since she didn't have any permanent magic in her sleeve yet she had to also ask for a small fireplace to be installed so that she could cook the tea. She didn't mention it though with her request, instead she said it was to help her sleep hearing the crackling of the wood fire. The coals in the morning were still hot enough for her to get a cup going.

And speaking of going.

"Over here is where we'll begin, you and I," Frioke informed while swiping her palm across the backs of some fairly recent books cramped into a shelf of a bookcase that looked human-made. "I've found that working backwards throughout the history of magic works the best as it is the latest of the history you are accustomed with. These books are not the same as the ones you read in Soul's School I should both inform and caution you." She pressed her hand into the bookcase, and waited for Cter's reaction with a knowing smile.

Nothing happened though. Neither on Cter's face nor on the bookcase. Cter had heard stories about secret compartments being hid behind bookcases as a new and innovative idea for nobility and wealthy merchants alike from some gossip she picked up in Jarasevo, but perhaps there were too many books for Frioke to be able to press them in enough to trigger the secret switch?

Frioke's ears fell behind her, skidding down the shelves and rustling some parchments. "Why aren't you..." She looked down at Cter's left arm and slapped herself on the forehead. "That's right!" she sighed, causing some books to shake beside her. "Your magic."

After Cter's heart had returned down her throat from seeing the books shake from Frioke's sigh she decided that it was the best chance she'd ever get to bring up that she was a Monster Mage without any magic. She lifted up her arm in front of her. "When am I being allowed to wield magic again?"

With the sound of a rapid stroke of a broom Frioke's ears shot up straight against the bookcase. "Allowed to wield magic again?" Her question was said slowly and pondering against the bleak tone that Cter asked hers with. "Why do you say that? Do you...do you not want to use magic anymore?"

The way Frioke said it…

It made Cter's brow deepen. There was an overwhelming concern to Frioke's voice that Cter didn't expect. "I…" She hesitated. "Why else haven't I been given any?" Was there a reason not due to her?

A gradient of both the color of Frioke's conjured light and her softened worry faded from candle-orange to fireplace-red and to disappointingly angry at the same time. Her lips parted as the light flared with a flickers of flames and small strikes. Her emotions were on full display twice. Both in her magic and on her face. "Gerson..." she muttered with her ears flattened forwards which drowned her face in shadowy darkness. "He hasn't told you?"

For a short moment Cter debated internally whether or not to crouch down so that Frioke would be able to see her shaking her head as a negative answer to the monster's question, but decided against it. Even without any magic in her sleeve Cter could feel that the air around was filled with tense emotion from Frioke. "Told me what?"

A harsh pout emerged from the edges of the shadows on Frioke's face onto her cheek. It looked both childish and important. "Your assignment," Frioke said with poison dripping from her exposed fangs which rested their lengths on Frioke's lower lip. "Has he forgotten why that human priest gave him his magnifying glass? His eyes have again moved over to the new horizon without even a second's thought to the step ahead of him." Angrily she whipped her head around with her ears staying in the same position. "Gotta have to stick it in his shell again so that he remembers."

Since Cter wasn't really involved in the conversation she took the opportunity to look around for the best table to sit at. Not really that she had any preferences for one or the other, it was just to have something to do as Frioke began to try and calm herself down.

"Okay;" the Royal Councilor exhaled tiredly before Cter managed to decide the best table to use. "It is nothing to do with you, Cter. Nothing negative, that is. It's just...Sir Gerson. He has a habit of spearing ahead a bit too quickly and too much to plan out and be ahead of the humans. I don't blame him nor would I want to have his responsibilities, but sometimes he does really go out of his way enough that it leaves the rest of us disoriented in the dust." Frioke washed her hands clean in the air in front of her as she walked back to Cter. "That's it." With her cleaned hand she grabbed a hold of Cter's sleeve. "I'll supply you with magic until you set off for your permanent one."

It only took a moment before Cter realized that Frioke said her last sentence without moving her mouth. It came from inside Cter, from inside her soul. "You catch on quickly." There was a vague echo to Frioke's voice, distorting it. More so than the normal distortion monsters had. "I guess the first lesson has started now. Do you feel anything different, Cter?"

Not as much as Frioke thought Cter did. She'd felt the difference before, but not as strongly. When the hedgehog monster gave some of his memories to Cter for her to help him remember his grandfather she could feel the magic being subtly different to hers. Like she woke up and parted her hair off her face the other way than was her habit. Not enough that it would matter to anyone else, but to her it would. "It is how the magic courses through the lines, isn't it?" was her answer.

"It is, Monster Mage."

"I felt it before when my Royal Guard escort asked me to help him remember something. I had to use some of his magic to help him like I did my clients before," Cter explained out loud to Frioke. Since she was not accustomed to either the details of her sleeve or Frioke's magic any emotion she would express would be easy for Frioke to pick up on, especially lying. Not that Cter had anything to lie about. Nothing she could think of. "With Romrom's sleeve and her magic it was more...rigid? Like oak, perhaps. Do you feel what I'm trying to say?"

Frioke nodded. "I'm gonna be attentive to your emotions and thoughts while you explain to me, if you don't mind. To know a bit more about you so that I can teach you better. Is that okay with you?"

There was a very subtle tick in one of the lines in Cter's memory-less sleeve that she caught in the corner of her eye and soul. "With that question too?" She flexed her hand to feel how her skin felt underneath her inert sleeve. The way it tickled in its own way. Again differently from how Romrom's felt, which she eventually got used to and came to cherish as Romrom's physical touch.

"Of course, Cter." The honesty was made in extreme confidence, Cter felt. "This is all to help you grow."

That Cter understood, but to what extent she didn't exactly. She still didn't know who her permanent magic would come from. Maybe it would be Romrom again? She sure longed to travel back to her village in Hjearta to share the good news. In her heart of hearts she wished that it was her assignment.

"So how would you describe how the magic feels now, Cter? If Romrom's felt like oak this feels like..."

"Pine," Cter answered without thinking. It had to be what her soul wanted her to say. "Evergreen." After that though she could mull on it and try and understand why she said it. "Maybe because it feels a bit more flexible. However it doesn't feel less robust than Romrom or oak."

"That's because it's not permanent, only loaned."

"I guessed as much."

Frioke moved her arm underneath Cter's sleeve. "Are the patterns here similar to how Romrom filled them out?" With a claw she indicated where the glow was. Cter didn't need for them to be pointed out, but it did give some contrast to the white glow against the white claw which Frioke used. "I could only make some educated guesses as to how and where Romrom applied her magic onto your old sleeve."

Educated was the right word to describe it as Frioke was pretty close with her guesses. As close as the difference in the lines would allow, that is. It wasn't a one-to-one translation as there were some liberties that were obviously taken to make the translation work as closely as possible, but Cter was quite impressed in Frioke's skill in emulating Romrom's magic.

While she initially felt a bit queasy about it she was quickly reminded by herself that it was a bit hypocritical of her to think that way since it was her bread and butter to use the magic of other monsters.

Cter didn't feel any of Romrom inside Frioke's magic either, it was only the functional expression from the lines which she translated and not the inherit magic or soul of Romrom.

A house built the same way using the same tools and designs, but with pine instead of oak.

"How much does it feel like your own, Cter?"

That was a weird question. The magic was loaned and not a permanent part of Cter's sleeve, so she couldn't even use the layman's term of it being her own magic. "Not a lot, to be honest," Cter said after giving it an honest effort to make it feel her own. "It's still very much you inside my sleeve, Frioke."

She nodded at the answer, "I see," and let go of Cter's arm. "Could you perform some magic for me? Anything you want."

Actually being asked to do anything she wanted made it harder for Cter to choose which one to do. Ice because it was the first magic she did with Romrom's sleeve which was the first permanent Cooperative Connection magic she had worn? Fire because it was the first magic Cter learned on her own? Orange magic because it is the most vivid magical experience in her mind? Perhaps stasis magic because it was what Frioke used lastly?

All the choices had their strengths and weaknesses to being the best choice to show her magical potential with, especially with–

"You're overthinking it, Cter."

The comment was amused, but in a positive and encouraging way just as much as it was pointing out the fact. Cter sighed. "I am overthinking it," she repeated in agreement through her exhale. "Sorry."

"No, no, no," Frioke assured with her chuckle turning warmer like her conjured light that was back to its candle-orange flicker. "Saying sorry means that you did something wrong. While I did mean to interrupt it was to let you know that you didn't have to overthink it. You've come such a long way since you first did magic that I'm sure you've forgotten how it felt all that time ago. The pressure and confusion before it became second nature to you. Then you've had Romrom's sleeve with you during all this time you've lived here in Jarasevo and developed your magical prowess, turning it from second nature to first nature for you. It has become such an integral part of you that when met with a third nature situation like this it is no wonder you feel a bit like you did during your first time."

The only open book in the entire study was Cter, apparently.

"If you'll allow me to give a thought to use?" Frioke offered without any need for Cter to verbally agree to it. She felt it directly through her borrowed magic. "From all your past experience using other monsters' magic try and recall the first one you did. Who was it with? What was the situation?"

Before Cter could answer that though. "Do you already know the answer?" She had to ask.

"Yes, I do," admitted Frioke neutrally. Just to inform, not to judge or add any of her own opinion to it. Just stating it objectively.

Cter knew that her magical services had reached up to the castle. She'd registered it as a business to easier keep her books and to legitimize it, after all. Hearing Frioke saying it though was again to help build her trust and confidence. "It was a green monster. I never really asked his name due to the circumstances during our first meeting. I was a bit too full of myself as a mage. Freshly graduated and just feeling that my magic was above him. I did not mean to, but really I did, and that was how he saw me. Maybe I did take a bit too much a brazen step, but my intentions were only to help him. Sure I'd be proud of being able to help, but not from the angle he saw it as."

"Tar stuck on his fur, was it?"

"It was," Cter recalled with a nod. "Stuck on his fur but he couldn't get it off as his magic reminded him too much of his wife. Getting it off felt like he was throwing her away. I can't say that I fully understood how that felt emotionally, but I understood what he meant by it. Infusing the tar with her essence and discarding it," the Monster Mage sighed deeply through her nose while she continued nodding. "It's like disrespecting a monster's dust being spread on their favorite thing."

"And then?"

"And then we shared a bond of anger, funnily enough. His fire I felt and could understand as I felt a similar anger towards him. It wasn't bonded via that anger, but through a mutual understanding. That was why it worked. That's what made it constructive and could flourish as a Cooperative Connection."

Frioke looked to Cter's sleeve where a flicker, orange glow had begun manifesting. Cter lifted her sleeve up for Frioke to see, and expanded the flicker into a bursting flame that danced in her hand. Another set of long shadows skewered and split the bookcases from Cter's fingers.

"Very good, Cter. No sparking or shimmer to it despite it being your first time with your new sleeve."

Much better than with her ice-fart when she donned Romrom's sleeve.

Progress.

"This means that we can begin the lesson," Frioke informed while again moving over to the bookcase she stood at first. "And this lesson ties in to what you said about how you learned your fire." While holding the bookcase still with her stasis magic, Frioke pulled out one of the most recent-looking books with a rapid tug. She let the stasis fade away slowly as to not have it all explode. "About how you had to re-contextualize your emotion into a constructive one."

Cter watched as Frioke slid the book across the nearest table and sat herself down at a chair. "A Jubious Jubilation about Dubious Deliberation?" she had to read twice in her head before she could formulate the necessary syllables. "Isn't this the new book from Willow Wiggledart?"

"Things are about to be lifted from your eyes, Cter," came a sudden foreboding from Frioke on the other side of the table. "Things that you must know to be a Monster Mage. However, these truths are not positive ones." Upon scaly elbows she leaned forwards with her ears flattening with complete and utter weight and gravity. "This is not a choice you can make." With her right hand she caressed the top of the book, briefly concealing the title and author's name to then reveal them again. "It is the magic I have. The book to anyone else without my magic is just..." She motioned in the air. "The title that I can't remember, but with you Monster Mages having been given my magic, you can read it as well."

Not a lot of what was said was heard by Cter. Her mind was too occupied with the new title the book had. No, not its new title.

It's old one. Upon an old and leather-wrapped cover.

"Proposal of the Cooperative Connection in regards to controlling human magic."

Cter's chin tilted up to meet the almost apologetic eyes looking back at her glimmering with the magical candlelight breathing as long and gently as Frioke was. "The Cooperative Connection is not a requirement," stated the Monster Priestess factually.

"In fact, it does not even exist."