"Castle seems to still be on the ground."

A piece of fruit bounced against the back of Cter's head because of her incredibly snarky comment being the first thing she's said to Idyll for months on end. Such strength was there in their friendship though that Cter looked past the intent and execution of Idyll's fruit-based attack and continued to overly praise her friend for the herculean task of keeping a castle from floating away into the clouds, never to be seen again.

"Must be your cooking that's held it down during my absence," Cter said while leaning on just one elbow on the kitchen sill behind her and her other hand sweeping across the large dining hall with a grand and noble gesture. "It's almost just as how I remember it."

"Almost?" came a sneered reply drenched in oily sizzle before Cter's leaned-on elbow was knocked off with the handle-end of a long wooden ladle causing the Fourth Monster Mage to flail for a moment before catching her balance. Her robes caught a slight draft as she sank down with her knees to regain balance. "Deposit away all the air out your trousers before trying again with your greeting towards me, please."

It was with an amused snicker that Cter turned to face her friend raising one eyebrow high while her chin was deposited on her towel-wrapped knuckles."No," Idyll refuted with two of her fingers pointing tightly from underneath the towel as Cter leaned in for a hug. Two small holes of scorched fabric revealed the clawed tips of Idyll's fingers. "Greeting sprites."

Oh yeah! Cter had forgotten all about them!

Not that she would say that to Idyll.

From the ember-ringed fingers flowed shimmering shards of ice covering bright flames in their cores. As they spun and angled through the air they left behind trails of droplets that reflected a shimmer of a rainbow that gave the stained marble some more pleasant coloring to it. The shimmering sailing came to an abrupt halt as they collided with the cloud of crystalline magic sent out by Cter. The echoes of the impacts were even more melodic than the last time the two greeted the other with their magic, and it had them pause to enjoy the sound for a brief moment before the walls kept it all to themselves.

"There," declared Idyll as she pushed herself up to a proper stand after having bent down to place a form of mashed potatoes into an oven heated by her own making. "Now we can hug."

As tender as could be, the two friends leaned all their weight into the other. Their chins wrapped around the other's neck where they stayed and enjoyed the others familiar warmth for a long and quiet moment. "Is that strawberry I smell? Was it the piece you threw at me?" perked Cter to break the tender moment with a snorted chuckle from Idyll that chafed at Cter's neck. It was punishment enough. "Golly me, it's harvest now, isn't it?"

It reminded Cter of when Idyll first brought back some of Monster Country's fruit back home when the two lived together down in Jarasevo. The strange, sweet-mixed-sour odor that grabbed hold of Cter's collar as she entered from her day of working her magic with the locals. The pot stewed a very auspicious type of foam that Idyll sliced off and compressed into balls of sorts that she rolled into shapes and flowers. She had to use her orange magic for that.

Her orange…

Cter's arms tightened around her friend as flashes of memories began to thunder in her head.

"Don't worry," laughed Idyll at the obviously worried hardening of the hug. "I won't throw in meat this time. Barbeqa has already slapped me on the head to get that idea out." With a confident lean back from the hug she flashed her bright, uneven, and toothy smile that caught the last shimmer from the residue cloud of the greeting magic slowly falling down onto the floor. It looked a bit like she had some food stuck in her teeth, but with Cter so close to the smile she could easily tell that it wasn't due to the lack of texture.

Texture that wasn't the same as the wind-sheered side of an ancient mountain, that is.

"Also," said Idyll with her smile widening while she nodded down towards Cter's left arm. "Your aura is thicker than Barbeqa's coffee, Cter."

"You're all weaklings that don't need to use a knife to carve your coffee!" was shouted from somewhere inside the kitchen followed by a strange sound that was somewhere between a cup being smashed and a piece of meat being slammed onto a counter. "Bring me my cleaver!" The kitchen shone briefly with an excited, fiery glow as a wild cackle distanced itself further and further into an echo down into the kitchen basement.

Idyll tapped a finger on her temple while she shook her head with an exasperated sigh. "Anyways," she almost whistled, "you have your permanent Monster Mage magic now, I take it? I could tell from the sound of your greeting magic that your magic has increased, but damn it almost sounded like church bells when your magic shattered, Cter!" The excitement in Idyll's voice rang almost as melodic as the magical greeting. "I knew you'd get something incredible, but this is just amazing! Look at how it looks! I'm looking at it and it just looks..."

Cter was unable to hold in her giggle. Idyll didn't take any offense to it though. She was too enamored with her friend's accomplishment that nothing could bring her down!

"Mages don't have patterns to their lines though, right?" Idyll ran her finger on the spiraling lines up Cter's sleeve. "At least not what I've heard and seen. The human mages from Hjearta's court didn't have any, and those are the best of the best when it comes to human mages. Best of the best excluding Xoff's court which are also the best of the best, and excluding you too since...you know."

Not a human, yes. Cter understood what Idyll's hand meant as she threw it up in the air and wiggled it strangely to emphasize. If anything it kinda intrigued Cter a bit. She'd never really met another human mage before to compare her magic with. There had been a few ones visiting Jarasevo before while Cter lived in the city, but she'd always been busy working to be able to spare time and visit the castle. That was the primary reason, the secondary reason was that the human mages were in Jarasevo Castle and Cter wasn't really in the best of moods to go and visit it anytime soon back then. She had her own life going for her back then without the need to compare her magic with other mages.

With her being told that her magic had ascended that of the prior Monster Mages though from one of the prior Monster Mages? Well that changed some things. Maybe it was some of Bonny Sallus' personality seeping through into hers, but Cter was flushing with pride that it almost began seeping out her ears. Idyll was practically laying herself flat over the kitchen sill with her legs bent up and crossed as she turned and examined Cter's sleeve with eyes darting up and down the magical lines. "Not that way," Cter had to inform gently before Idyll twisted her arm enough for her elbow to pop out of its socket. "Too much."

"Sorry," said Idyll as she regained a sliver of decency and hopped back down onto her feet. "I'm just so excited seeing and feeling you so full of confidence, Cter. I never knew your shoulders could be that wide!" Idyll's knuckles clonked against the walls of the serving window as she stretched them out to the sides. "I'm sure Kry is sweating now that he has competition for the most presence radiated from a Monster Mage."

"As if there has been any drop of sweat on his brow," Cter joked back while gripping her sleeve to stop Bonny Sallus' memories from shattering her lie. "And I'm just trying to make sure that Sir Gerson doesn't see me slumped from all that time spent in the carriage. I heard from Sund that he was forced extra physical exercise after his first return from out of country." Cter rolled her shoulders back some more just in case. Her loose robe afforded her to have her shoulders further back than normal and still have it look natural. "I'm just making sure that I don't have to do a hundred situps, pushups, squats, and a ten runs up and down the hill every single day." Her lips blew an exasperated raspberry. "That much exercise might turn someone bald from the effort of it all."

"Guess Gerson is doing eighty or so what with his," Idyll spun a finger through her hair similar to the ploof of hair that the turtle monster had on his forehead. "Not quite completely bald yet."

"He actually had a full head of hair during his younger years." Cter remembered it from Frioke's memories. Long, flowing, almost like an avalanche of snow down the back of his head as he wore it slicked-back similarly to Kry. She gestured the shape over her head with her right hand. "Was quite the sight."

A quirked brow bounced into the depths of Idyll's steam-frayed fringe, disappearing without a trace. "Quite the sight? You mean you've seen it? When was that?" Both of her hands slammed flat into the greased and charred wood, alerting the handful of Royal Guards enjoying their meal far down the dining hall. "Why didn't you tell me, Cter!" The disappointed outburst was equally confused as it was begging. "Gerson with hair," Idyll whispered to herself with her smile turning borderline sinister. "What I would give to see that in its magnificence. Perhaps it was as great as King Asgore's hair."

Before Cter could try and drum up an explanation to her slipped tongue, "Actually–" she was interrupted by Idyll snapping her finger with excitement loud enough to deafen.

"I baked a pie with Queen Toriel, Cter!" Idyll almost threw herself deeper into the kitchen for a grease-stained journal that she slid over like it was the deed to the castle itself. It was a bit more slippery than Idyll expected, and Cter had to catch the edge of it before it slid off the sill and stained her robe. "She even wrote down the recipe for me! Oh I gotta tell you all about it!" Idyll turned away from Cter's somewhat-puzzled face and shouted loudly towards the stairs leading down to the kitchen basement. "Cter has asked me to cook for her personally inside her study, Barbeqa!"

The way Idyll shouted it sounded strangely...rehearsed. As if she'd done it before.

As if she'd done it many times before, even.

"Again?" echoed up from the basement. It confirmed Cter's suspicion, and she let out a baffled scoff as her expression scrunched into folds a plenty. "How many meals a day can that Monster Mage eat, dammit!"

How many times…

What!

Without looking Cter slammed the weight of her confusion down onto Idyll's shoulder via her naked hand, stopping the blue monster in her tracks. "Idyll," Cter addressed her best friend with all the curiosity in the world.

"Yes, Cter?" her best friend answered with innocence as stained as her chef's apron. "Would you like me to stay in your study for me to serve you dinner as well, Monster Mage? Is that an order, hm? An order for you to order?"

"How many times have you thrown my authority around, Idyll?" The question wasn't really looking for an answer as it was more accusing with a plastered smile.

"Don't ask questions you don't want answers to, Monster Mage."

Was that so?

"Plus you can also tell me about Sarbor, so..."

While Cter was indeed impressed about Idyll playing the longest game of befriending a human mage on the off-chance that the mage would become a Monster Mage so that she could throw that friend's Royal Guard rank around to skip work, there was a slight veil of abstract grumbling to the realization.

"You're the worst, Idyll."

The monster chuckled back at the sneered expression. "If even Queen Toriel can let that slip then so can you, Monster Mage."

Wait what? "Queen Toriel let that slip?"

Idyll looked down at Cter's hand on her shoulder and then nodded towards the door. "I'll tell you when we get to your room." She then started to walk which had Cter's hand slipping off the sturdy shoulder, leaving fatty residues on the fair-skinned palm. "Why don't I escort you there with all haste, Monster Mage, if that is your order of me, someone with a much-lower rank?"

As Cter watched her best friend who'd just revealed that she'd been lying about Cter to skip work, the Monster Mage could do nothing but laugh.

Laugh with such relief.

For as far as Cter had come in her own journey, just as far Idyll had come to! It made Cter so happy!

Not enough to ever forgive Idyll completely.

But happy nonetheless.

"Um..."

The unsure call for Cter's attention came from a rather-embarrassed Idyll failing to open the large dining hall door with her elbow. She tried in vain to put all the weight of her carried-with equipment and ingredients that she had snatched up from what she could grab in the kitchen over to one arm, but it only caused her to almost drop everything. Cter took some long steps over and opened the door with some stasis to let her friend out. She followed afterwards, and kept the door open for a pair of Royal Guards entering while talking between each other about whether or not skeleton monsters ran the risk of knotting their ceremonial robes up between their ribs.

Idyll and Cter quirked eyebrows between the other as the Royal Guards entered the dining hall. With shrugs they began their journey through the castle. "So, yeah, you've gone from like a lamp to the sun in your aura, Cter," Idyll said while adjusting the cumbersome load in her arms. "Have you had a chance to go all out yet with it?"

"Not really," Cter answered after a thoughtful glance onto the kitchen equipment sitting less secure in Idyll's grip than usually. "I'm still acclimating myself to it, and it to me, so I have to walk around boasting it, so to speak. Will be a few days until I am allowed to keep it subdued, said Frioke. The Cooperative Connection that I use is a bit...special." She wanted to say more, but that would only have brought up things she definitely didn't want to say more of. "Hence why I have to take a bit longer acclimating to it."

"Monster Mage magic?" Idyll bent her knees to aid with bouncing the unruly pot back into a firm grip. Her hands looked quite greasy, which was understandable. "I can imagine it being special. Or can I?" Less than a second she afforded the thought. "Eh, that's for you to know and care about, Cter." Idyll winked along with her flashing smile. "I'll just make sure to keep your energy up so that you can do your special magic."

Cter didn't really mean for what she said next to be offensive, but… "Hearing someone else calling it 'special magic' makes it sounds kinda patronizing." She knew full well in both her mind and soul that Idyll meant it with all the best intentions. So well were they friends that Cter also knew that Idyll would twist what Cter said and make it overly patronizing.

"But you are special, Cter. Really, really, special." And there it was. Immediate, and with a tone only employed when speaking to kittens or puppies. "With your special sleeve and your special magic that makes you a special mage worthy of the most special of praise!"

The Royal Guards stood at the gate to the Royal Garden cocked their heads at Idyll, a Royal Chef, talking to the Fourth Monster Mage Cter like she was a child that just learned her first word. The tree monster looked to his rooster friend who's comb was hanging like a fallen question mark.

"And because of that I await a very special meal," Cter tried to counter, but it only added fuel to the patronizing fire. "Eh, just forget it."

"Never in your life."

Had Idyll not been carrying all of the equipment Cter would've elbowed the blue monster in the ribs. She knew exactly where to aim to hit between the ribs as she had healed Idyll and knew where she was ticklish. Mostly she had healed some bruises on the head from bumping into the basement hatch while Idyll worked at Krygino's tavern.

Wait, didn't Queen Toriel also work there?

"By the way, Idyll? When you baked the pie with Toriel..."

Cter had to pause to let the thought of it being a euphemism pass by.

…

…

"When you baked the pie with Toriel, did you ask her about her time at Krygino's tavern?"

Idyll's eyes widened as she stopped dead in her tracks. Cter slowed down more gradually and managed two more steps before she was at a halt.

"I mean I just wondered if you did."

With a violent thrust of her neck, Idyll threw her grimacing muzzle into the pot with blatant disregard to the pain of all the vegetables breaking against her face and forehead. "Dammit!" she shouted into the pot with it only mildly muffling her voice. "I'm so stupid!" The fact that Cter didn't immediately say anything against that statement had Idyll throwing a narrowed pair of eyes over the cluttered metal lip of the pot. "No you're not, Idyll," she began to comfort herself with a poor mimicking of Cter's voice. "You're the smartest friend I have!"

Cter wasn't going to lie just to make Idyll feel better. That would ring just as hollow as Idyll's shout into the pot was. "Would've been special had you thought about it," she explained instead with a shrug sent with faux condolences. "But hey, maybe you'll get another chance later?"

Idyll grumbled for a short while with her chin resting across the pot like a poorly fitted and rather-annoyed lid. With a final heaved sigh she straightened out her back and began walking again, albeit with her shoulders lowered as much as she could. "I just can't believe that I missed asking her that," she lamented as she passed by Cter who joined her in her walking. "But you're right. I'll remember to ask her again next time. Sure hope that there will be a next time."

"I'll put in a good word for you should I meet Queen Toriel before you do;" offered Cter as she patted Idyll's back as patronizingly as she could, with wide and slow circles. "Maybe through King Asgore too should it be necessary."

"Well Queen Toriel did seem to enjoy the baking with me so I'm sure I'm leaning more towards her good side rather than on her bad side."

Another pause.

…

…

"Had to be a reason why she chose you in the first place, Idyll."

Pause again.

…

…

"Yeah." Idyll adjusted her grip a bit more desperately. "Could be said the same for why Barbeqa hired me."

"As in she had a reason for it?"

"Besides my cooking skills, that is," clarified Idyll with a proud nod. "You ever wondered why she only wears her purple apron folded just above her stomach as she does?"

Cter didn't really think about that, actually. Just one of the quirks of the monsters that it felt better just to let slip and live with rather than question. Like with why there was that door which sung a pleasant hum as it was knocked on. Cter only had to hear that slightly creepy excitement just once before she concluded that it would be a door that wasn't vital to her duties as a Monster Mage. "To even out the heat during the cooking process?" Cter guessed while scratching her temple. "Searing the meat on more than one side at a time?"

Idyll's lips curled back with disbelief. "You've not noticed?"

That was why she was guessing.

"Bareqa's arms, shoulders, stomach? Her head?" Idyll was in as much disarray as the jumbled ingredients in her pot. "She's like a human on fire!"

Cter could only blink. "What are you–"

"Yes I know that was not what I meant to say," Idyll interrupted with a sigh. "I'm not wrong in saying that. I'm just not right."

"Okay..."

"You've seen her arms at least, right? How her flames bend to be shaped almost like muscles on a human? She was adopted and raised in a human village in a merchant family so that's why she has that firewood-orange color to her flames. She became fascinated both with the cooking and how the food helped humans grow muscles. Since she couldn't really grow any herself since she didn't have a lot of magic training." Idyll had to put down the pot for a bit to catch her breath. "Because of her cooking though and her expertise with Xoff spices she got work here and Frioke began teaching her some magic." She sat down on a nearby bench while she rolled her shoulders and summoned a comforting fire to help.

Cter joined her friend on her bench. "Massage?" she asked and got a nod in return. A mixture of purple stasis and cyan conjuring was enough to make a rudimentary dowel that pushed and rolled over Idyll's shoulders. She tilted her head back with tension in her dragged-back cheeks at first once they began, but then she breathed out relaxed as the dowels hit the right spots.

"Later she traded with Bonny Sallus for an anatomy chart of the human muscles groups and began to make her flames more human. Even made herself some hair too. That's why she wears her apron folded so that we can all admire her eight abs."

Eight?

Actually, no. Cter wasn't gonna get into that. Just another thing to just let live with the monsters.

"So when she heard that I'd also grown up around humans and had an interest in cooking she first introduced me to the anatomy chart and only after that the Royal Kitchen." Idyll tugged up her undershirt to show Cter. "No abs on me though. I can't change my form as easily as Barbeqa, but that's not stopping her." The black feathers on her cheek parted like the dark clouds after a storm to reveal an eager grin. Idyll punched up into the air and flexed her large arm. The fabric of her clothing tensed just as much. "Don't think no human will ever get close to this though, ey?"

Cter was in agreement to that. She had never seen a human come even as close to Idyll's size. Her arm was as wide as Cter's leg. Despite that though Idyll had to take a rest. She had to set down the heavy pot and take a breather to catch her breath. Her arm that she flexed with such a smile behind it was shaking like an aspen leaf in the wind. Even Idyll's smile began to fade, and the black feathers eventually hid away her smile.

"Do you want me to give you some of your old magic back, Idyll?"

It was a question Cter had wanted to ask for a while. Depending on the answer, and even if she got an answer at all, it would say a lot about how Idyll felt. Cter fully believed Idyll telling her that she was fine, but sometimes it had to be someone else to make one realize that they weren't fine. Cter wanted to help if that was the case. For as much as Idyll wanted to Cter still was responsible for what happened. After talking with Kurant about her knee, and experiencing it through Bonny's eyes and soul, Cter both knew that she wasn't the only one that had reached farther than she could grab. She wouldn't let Idyll's magic be chronic like Kurant's knee. Even if it was different with Idyll being a monster it was still the same. It was still a parallel with the events.

A Cooperative Connection that delved deeper than it should have. A new depth that wasn't known before. A new understanding of the connection between humans and monsters that would ultimately be lauded as a momentous victory in the history books if things continued as they did. History loses nuances though, like the lost orange nuance of Idyll's previous magic.

"Will it feel like my old magic?" Idyll asked while she slowly closed and opened her hands. Cter felt the exhaustion in Idyll's aura. Idyll let Cter feel that just as how she did. Each slow close that felt like a cramp in Cter's hand, and each slow opening that didn't relax, but instead just cramped in the opposite direction. "Or will it feel like you're giving me a different type of magic?"

That Cter couldn't tell. "I don't know," she said gently with her head low. She let her massaging dowels dissipate. While she was sure that she could easily handle two types of magic she wasn't confident in it. Not yet. "The most vivid memory I have correlated with strengthening orange is of us sitting at our apartment building's rooftop drinking and talking about the castle. You gave me it as if it was a buffet for me to take everything I wanted." Cter's eyes darkened for a moment. "Perhaps that's why my soul took everything during that night."

"Makes sense."

That Idyll said it so casually didn't sit right in Cter's ears, but she understood that Idyll said it that way to help Cter not blame herself so much. A true friend.

"So my reasoning is that it won't feel as your own magic, Idyll. Since you have different magic now your soul is expressing your you in a different way. Same ingredients but a different recipe for your magic."

"A better recipe."

Again Idyll said it for Cter's sake.

"So while to me you are the same monster that I met that desperately needed a roommate, you aren't the same monster. Your soul is not the same, but you are. You're still Idyll Fech to me, and to everyone, but according to your soul you are not. Your soul has you as Idyll Fech capable of fire and ice magic and not Idyll Fech capable of strengthening magic, and..."

Idyll watched as Cter's head flopped down and her hair fell after it like a cascading waterfall of bark-brown. "And?" she repeated, unsure what Cter actually meant.

"And I don't know if your soul will be reminded of who you were before. Perhaps it'll change back, and if it does I've no clue what will happen to you. Perhaps you'll revert back to that night and all of your memories up until today will be lost. Perhaps your soul will reject who you are now? Or maybe you'll get your old magic back? Maybe it'll replace what you have now or it will just add to it?" The Fourth Monster Mage threw her arms up high in a wide shrug. "Who knows!"

It was a miracle that the bench hadn't collapsed with how heavy Cter were making things.

And also with how much it shook from Idyll's hefty chuckle that followed immediately afterwards. "You've really gone into a whole other league with your thinking, haven't you?" She wrapped her shaking arm around Cter's shoulder and dragged her friend into her. "I'm so happy about that. That you've come so far, Cter. However!" Idyll made sure to make it as dramatic as possible. She raised her other hand into the air with her index finger pointing as high as she could. "All those thoughts." The finger fell from upon high and tapped Cter on the head with a clonk. "You hear? All those thoughts and none of those with any confidence to them. By King Asgore's beard and Queen Toriel's ears, you're a borderline Gerson with how many potential wrong steps you're thinking of and only one good, if even that. Maybe I should burn away your hair so that you're as bald as him too, eh?"

A nearby Royal Guard turned its owl head right around to a mere chef holding a Monster Mage in a neck hold.

"She's my best friend more than she is my superior officer," defended Idyll to the Royal Guard before going back to Cter. "You know more about magic than I'll ever do, Cter, but I know you more than you know magic. That counts for something when it comes to magic. A bond stronger than any Cooperative Connection your sleeve can ever get. You talk of my soul as an entity separate from myself, that's how deep you are with this, Cter. Even with that though, we're more friends than that. More friends than any magic can break!"

And for that Cter was thankful.

But she couldn't give Idyll back her magic though.

Not with her arm wrapped around Cter's neck.

Because that would've popped it clean off!

"Come on now," said Idyll as she stood Cter up. "I've sat enough to be able to carry the pot the rest of the way."

"Even up the stairs?"

"Even up the stairs. You can give me my old magic when you feel confident about it, Cter. I'll wait for as long as you need to."

Not for long.

That Cter promised!