"Oh what a miracle! A Monster Mage!"

The welcome Cter received as she steeped out of the carriage at the border tavern named The Flipping Heart situated at house number nine eight six on Main Road Three. Surrounding the carriage were humans and monsters half-and-half, like the half-and-half of the golden fields around the town comprised of wheat and Golden Flowers. The crowd bent and waved akin to the crops in the quaint breeze when they finally got Cter's attention and she turned her head over to them.

A very different welcome indeed.

Since she didn't really get one when she first passed the border town by as a freshly-graduated human mage seeking her luck and fortune in Monster Country. What she realized later was that she instead got narrowed eyes sizing her up to then report to Jarasevo for Kry to assess. The porcupine waiter was nowhere to be found in the crowd though. Maybe she had retired or had been relocated somewhere else to take note of other human mages traveling through other borders. Perhaps she was the one that sent the report back to Jarasevo about her first impressions of Terri Fyed when he visited a few months earlier?

In any case Cter could not see her at all.

Not that she was sad about not being able to gloat and hold the first impression over the porcupine's head or anything.

But you know…

There was the attention of why the village hailed her arrival as a miracle though. That had Cter pausing on the carriage step enough to have it begin to tilt a bit. She swept her gaze across the gathered crowd stood eager with their various number of eyes glued at her every move. They didn't really look like a town that needed a miracle. All looked fed and in good mood. No sunken eyes filled with despair or quivering palms put together and thrown at her for mercy. If anything the sun was smiling upon them and their crops that shone bright and plentiful in the distance beyond the village borders. Not a shadow in sight even when the clouds passed before the sun.

Timidly, Cter raised her left hand to greet the border people, causing an eruption of cheers and waves back praising her journey and welcoming her as a savior. It had Cter's left hand retreating into her purple Hjearta robe to hide it from further over-reacted cheers. She wanted to take a retreating step back, but the carriage step didn't allow her to. She'd fall off if she did that.

And falling off was nothing an arriving miracle would do!

Wait…

"Let me be the first to welcome you personally to our quaint little village which you bless us so with your presence, Monster Mage," said a voice that had snuck around the carriage without her noticing. It was a complex monster, both in his appearance and demeanor. Three eyes arching high-up on a bulbous head soft like pillow. Two smiles dragged wide on each side, and two tentacles thrown wide on his less-bulbous body colored a faint lime-green. "For long we have waited and even expected your arrival here!" the monster continued with his tentacles and smiles stretching even wider, thinning out to almost wheat-like thickness. "The Flipping Heart welcomes you through its humble doors, where The Accustomed's Ambition awaits for you to join upon the wall many have tried to mount their face on, but few have succeeded!"

The speech had the mixed crowd riled up once again, with cheers and applause ringing like church bells up close. It had Cter flinch from just the sheer volume of it, head tucked into her lifted shoulders inside her purple robe like a turtle.

What the hell was this village? Why was it this different from the last time Cter had passed by. She was a Monster Mage, sure, but this was just overdoing it, wasn't it?

Or perhaps she was this important outside the castle?

That hadn't really dawned on her.

It began to creep up her spine though, straightening her back as it vertebrate by vertebrate filled her with the realization that she was indeed very important to these people, both human and monster. They lived together in this village, together like the Monster Royals had spent their lives to make as acceptable as possible.

Cter was a part of that plan. She was the living embodiment of human monster cooperation. The pinnacle and the spearhead of the golden age of human and monster cooperation. She was a human with a monster soul. She was a monster with a human soul.

She was both.

And she was blessing this small little border village with her presence!

In their eyes, at least.

Just a glint in Cter's.

Just a small one.

Promise.

"Monster Mage," the complex monster again spoke, his voice low and important. "Gaze upon our humble sign inviting into our humble tavern!" His eyes and tentacles moved to the sign at The Flipping Heart in a grand gesture. "Do you see its upside down soul? The representation of our village's duality come together to live in peace? The two made one? The legacy of King Soulay, and the Monster Royals that continue the passion he shared with them?"

Stroking the human ego as well as the monster ego. Cter was keen on the monster's plan as he waited for the people to bate their breath.

"But what shame, the passage of time. What shame, the fading the memory once vivid and full of luster glimmering in the eyes of those that had witnessed it! What shame, our humble tavern, built by humans and now kept alive by monster. What shame, its sign signifying the world we want to create and maintain for our children, and the children beyond. Look upon it, Monster Mage!" the monster roared with dramatic pain. "What does your eyes see? Your windows to your soul, a living embodiment of the cooperation that has brought us such joy and prosperity!"

What did Cter see?

She leaned forwards a bit, but made sure to keep her dignity about it.

…

Her sleeved hand found its way to her chin to hold up her heavy head deep in Monster Mage thoughts, important as could be.

…

The windows to her soul that presented the duality of humans and monsters made one by the credence of monsters due to the strength of human narrowed with Monster Mage focus. The pupils caught inside their forest-green lake were barely visible through the focused slit Cter made. White reflected in her windows, white of monster inside her eyes of human.

Soul dichromatism shining bright in the sunshine and surrounding fields of gold.

…

Cter's entire being, the closest being alive to finally reach a perfect equality of human and monster, narrowed her attention even further towards the sign the complex monster was gesturing towards.

…

What did she see?

"I don't see anything," Cter whispered through a small gap on the side of her mouth. "The sign is exactly like it was when I last traveled through here." She didn't really want to smother this village's celebration of whatever it was they were celebrating. Cter hadn't been informed of anything when she left Jarasevo Castle about the border town. The complex monster seemed to be the leader of the happy commotion, so it was best if Cter voiced her concerns quiet enough for only him to hear.

"What do you mean, Monster Mage?" one of the monster's mouths whispered back while the other smiled to the crowd. "You are Cter, the fourth Monster Mage, right?" It was a bit too late to ask that, and the way the complex monster's mouth facing Cter bent into a frown made it clear that he realized it too. "Just use your own amgic on the sign's upside-down soul and. It's been housing some of Monster Mage Sund's barrier magic up until now, and was a great gift he bestowed upon our little border town. It is our pride to have been one of the first long-term displays of his own magic."

Oh…

Well, that was gonna be a bit of a problem.

"I don't have any of my own magic," Cter whispered back through her small gap on the side of her mouth. "I haven't discovered it yet. Sorry."

"You haven-" The complex monster had to steel the public side of his face so that the one he hid towards Cter wasn't gonna bleed its anger-mixed-disappointment. "How? You're the fourth Monster Mage!" he almost spat. "Each new generation of mages are more powerful than the one before, so you discovering your own magic wouldn't be any trouble for you."

It was like the complex monster all of a sudden forgot that he was speaking to a Monster Mage. Something was amiss. Cter could almost smell it. "You flaunt these harsh words and tone of yours towards a Monster Mage?" she decided to flaunt back while threatening with her eyes to ruin it for the crowd. "Who are you? What is it you want with me exactly?"

The monster's aura shifted slightly at Cter's threat. "I..." his hidden mouth spoke before he close it shut. "A drink?" his exposed mouth instead sang to the crowd. "Of course, Monster Mage! I'd be delighted to serve you the best refreshments our humble tavern can offer. To drink in the aura of the village before you bless it with your incredible magic!"

As the crowd exploded into yet another grateful cheer, Cter was motioned towards the tavern door by the monster's stone-faced grimace. Things has evidently not gone according to his plans.

Whatever they were.

"Have a seat at whatever table you want," the complex monster offered after he bowed to the crowd while closing the widened tavern door. As soon as it shut his painted-on smile faded away, joining his hidden side's concerned expression. "What's your poison?" His bulbous body cut through the slices of light forcing themselves through the cracks of the old, treated logs laid cross as the walls. They flickered like candles in the wind as the crowd outside began to disperse. Few remained to not-so-subtly peek through the recently-washed windows, but none really walked close enough to be able to hear any conversation going on inside.

"Ey?" the complex monster repeated to extract an answer from Cter who was slightly busy taking in the old and weathered smell of warm tar that permeated the inside of the tavern. It smelled differently than the tar the green monster used to coat the walls in Jarasevo. More...human, for lack of a better descriptor. The individual ingredients being less prominent compared to their combined blend as was the case with the tar in Jarasevo. Distinctly made according to tradition rather than magic.

"Hm?" Cter answered without giving her attention. "What do you have?" The stalling gave her a bit more time to explore the inside of the tavern. She'd only managed to glimpse through the window as she sat on the bench on the front of The Flipping Heart. Finally stood inside, while not really a mission of hers, she did feel a bit of pride coming to claim her.

"Jarasevo or Hjearta imports?" the monster answered without really giving Cter a lot of time. "On the house, of course, Monster Mage."

With a slight huff through her nose Cter expelled some of the old tar smell out her lungs. "Bribing a Royal Guard official with alcohol, are we?" She raised an eyebrow that disappeared underneath her fringe.

The hollow pop of a bottle being opened for the first time seemed to vibrate the slow fall of dust illuminated in a wide plane by the slices of light. "Money's too obvious," replied the complex monster over the sound of the opened bottle being poured into a large glass. "Royal Mead," he introduced by sticking on of his tentacle's cup against the glass and holding it out for Cter. "Your carriage tells me you're traveling to Hjearta so we'll consider this an introduction to Hjearta culture, yes?"

Cter turned with a snicker, throwing her left hand back to give her purple mantle air to catch. "Well then that's just helping my mission to serve the Royal Couple, isn't it?" It just felt right to do so in the moment. Gave Cter a remarkable sense of confidence and importance as her mantle slowly descended back while she walked over to the bar to grab the offered glass filled with brown-yellow liquid.

She extended her left hand, with her sleeved fingers wrapping around the glass, as well as the complex monster's tentacle. He began to retract it, but before his suction could disengage, Cter tensed her sleeve's lines through her soul. Their brimmed light poured up her spiraling stem and out her fingers into the monster's tentacle. It was the first time she'd made her own brand of Cooperative Connection with her new magic, and while there was an initial cough and sputter in her magic, she managed it quite nicely.

"Maybe I'll find my own magic on the way back," Cter mused to herself as the rim of the glass touched her lower lip. "However what I gave you should be enough to restore whatever luster has faded from Sund's previous magic." The mead was cold and refreshing as it rolled over her tongue. It had the initial sweetness of Golden Flower tea to it, but not as much the sourness that followed. There was some Golden Flower in the mead, but it wasn't the primary ingredient. "With that out of the way," said Cter as she placed the glass down on the complex monster gripping his tentacle with a simultaneously distressed and awed aura to him, "what exactly was all the commotion about just now?"

Yes, it was clear to Cter that she was being quite brash and weighty with her title and abilities. However, she'd done enough to afford doing so. She'd been surrounded by monsters above or equal to her in magic ever since she entered Jarasevo Castle. For as much as the complex monster seemed to have a great deal of importance in his village, he wasn't really a Sir Gerson, now was he?

No offense to the complex monster. None at all. It's just that Cter had to apparently prove that she was a Monster Mage, which she did enough to leave the complex monster stunned and staring at his fingers with a torn expression that…

Wait.

Fingers?

Yes, fingers.

Five of them.

And a hand.

And an arm.

Shoulder.

Head.

Face.

Other shoulder.

The rest of the bulbous body followed the humanizing patterned, bending and forming with the viscosity of honey, with ripples and waves reverberating throughout the reforming body. The monster fell forward, bracing himself on the lip of the wooden counter with an exhausted groan.

"You had a tentacle just now," Cter pointed out, both figuratively and literally. Her finger retracted back to her glass to join the rest of her hand. Instead of up to her mouth she lifted the mead to her nose instead, which she smelled on, braced for a stench. It smelled...fine. Nothing was wrong with it. Cter continued to her second guess. "You're a slime monster then."

Her guess was confirmed almost as soon as she said it, as the complex texture and color of the monster sank into the gelatinous, human volume breathing heavily with palms gripping hard on the edge of the bar counter. The pressure had some of its slime filling the cracks in the old wood with lime-green drops.

The confirmation did only slightly reduce the shock and surprise stirred firmly within Cter. "Okay then." With a few coping bounces of her brow she allowed herself some more mead to help steel herself. "I see."

Maybe she gave a bit too much of her magic to the slime monster who breathed deeply to try and calm himself down. Strange that it took on a more human-like form rather than a bunny-like form like Bonny Sallus'. Not so much as to become a slimy twin of Cter though. Not enough to make it a woman, so to speak. Not with detail rivaling Barbeqa either. Pretty much what a monster who'd never seen a human before would describe a human.

"Singe my soul..."

The slime's voice was still monster-like, with its distinct slight vibrato and non-physical sound to it.

So Cter gave it enough magic to make it shift into a human-like form, but not enough that it took on some of her own aspects and features. She didn't give it enough magic to make its voice human though. A monster's voice was the consequence of the manifestation of its soul that was its body. Cter had given the slime enough magic to change its soul's first derivative, but not its second.

Yes...yes.

"Could you please not stare like that while I'm clearly trying to deal with the pain your forced transformation caused me?" said the slime with a hint of disgust and fear in his still monster-like voice to Cter sat leaning forward with her chin in her sleeved hand and her sleeved elbow heavy on the counter. "Please?"

"Hm?" Cter perked as she lifted her chin up while blinking herself back to reality. "Oh, sorry." She shook her head before drinking some more mead. "Had I known you were a slime monster I'd not given you that much magic." Her magical lines glowed a gentle green which she offered to the slime monster. "I'll just heal you," she defended as his eyes narrowed with an audible, wet contraction seeing and feeling Cter's magic flare up again. "If you want, of course."

"Not really 'of course' is it, Monster Mage?" was retorted through lime-green, gelatinous teeth tightened with even wetter sounds. "Close the curtains, please. The villagers can't see me like this."

They couldn't?

Why was that?

The green glow changed quickly into purple, and Cter swept her sleeve behind her, closing the curtains with a stasis-swept wind. The slices of light again flickered with commotion from outside. Faces pressed against the wall outside to try and look through the cracks, but to no avail.

"So they don't know that you're a slime monster?" mused Cter while tapping her half-empty glass on the bar counter. "How come?"

"Military sec-"

"I'm a Monster Mage."

Cter's quick reminder tore down the slime monster's initial, reflexive answer. "Right," he said defeated while sighing a bubble out of his upper lip which popped loudly. "I'm a Feeler at the behest of Jarasevo Castle and the Royal Guard. Because of me being a bit..." The slime monster flexed his viscous fingers. "A bit sensitive with my magic, so to say. Easily...um...convinced to take on a human mage's characteristics." He then motioned over his human-like, shifting body with his flexed fingers. "The barrier magic from Monster Mage Sund has kept me from changing my form involuntarily as well."

Took Cter's direct involvement for it to change then.

"It's a bit tiring to have to emotionally change each time a human mage enters the country via Pulsaoder. I'm still coming down from when that Hjearta Royal Mage passed by." The slime monster reached below the bar to pick up an already-opened bottle which he poured for himself. "Too bad I couldn't keep his impressive ice magic." He didn't so much as drink from the glass as he forced his mouth to form around the rim of it. "Would've done wonders for the tavern."

The way the slime monster talked was jaded and forlorn. Almost like his job was a punishment for him. "You're not feeling pride over your position?" Cter pried with her glass dangling loosely from the tips of her fingers. "Maybe it's this tavern then. The porcupine bar maiden I met when I entered years ago had a similar low energy to her."

A quick chortle had the slime monster's nostrils exploding with air. "That so?" he said with a gooey snicker to his melting lips. "I'll be sure to tell her."

Cter didn't really care if he did, but sure. She wasn't working at the time, that much was obvious. Perhaps she was on some other day.

It took another chortle from the slime monster observing Cter descending into thought before she realized. She sat down her glass hard on the counter while she massaged her forehead disappointingly. "It was you, wasn't it?"

"I'd show her to you again, but I'm kinda stuck like this for the moment," the slime monster emphasized by throwing his arms out to the side. "What a shame, the passage of magic."

"Sure." Cter lost that one. She wasn't too proud to not admit that. "But why still do this then? Again, you don't seem so uppity about it."

The gooey arms splattered against the slime monster's melting sides. "Well...sometimes you have to weather the journey to...eh...see another journey." The retracting shoulders shrugged, melting back as they fell down. "This sensitivity of mine kinda got me into some bouts of...emotional lapse, let' say. Both positive ones, and..."

"I getcha," Cter calmed seeing the lips of the slime monster bend inwards to keep the sour words inside, but disappearing as they did. "Well, I understand, I should maybe say instead."

"Thanks," said the slime monster, who'd regressed back into his original, amorphous form. "And it both led me to having a child, and also doing something so terrible I never wanted her to see me again. While again, my condition could be understood by the Royal Guard, it couldn't really be excused. I could either be jailed and be deprived of hope, or I could serve the crown and protect it. In exchange I would be able to see my child from time to time since she has extended family here in this village, but she'll never know that I was her father. A compromise I didn't really have a choice in declining. It is what it is, and I shouldn't really complain about it."

"Just would've been nice for your daughter to know?"

The entirety of the slime monster's body nodded. "Yes. She's here now, and was really, really excited seeing you, Cter. I saw her jumping in the crowd pointing and dragging her aunt's feathers in ecstatic disbelief." A small protrusion extended towards Cter. "You're not as bad as you were when you first entered this country, Monster Mage. It's nice to be able to have someone to talk about this. Just...don't go musing about what it was that I did, please? I already wake up in a cold sweat with the memories haunting me."

Cter's eyes moved down to her sleeve. A sinister chill took root at Cter's lumbar, but as it traveled up her spine it warmed up to something she actually could consider. "If I told you that I could perhaps change them, how'd you react?" Maybe Bonny Sallus' influence stayed with her more with her giving her magic to the slime monster?

"Seeing those lines on your arm gives me no doubt that you're lying to me, but no. No thank you, Monster Mage." An audible breath was inhaled through invisible nostrils. "This is something I have to atone in order to be able to live with myself."

Then Cter wouldn't pry further with the proposal.

"Besides, I think your carriage has been restocked by now, Monster Mage. Finish your drink. You have plenty more to travel." The slime monster sank into almost a puddle. "And...forgive me for how I acted prior. Sund greatly appreciated a similar welcome, and since you're also from Hjearta I assumed you'd be the same."

It took Cter slamming back the rest of her drink for her tongue to stay silent to that. "Apologies for giving you too much magic..."

"Ojam."

"My apologies, Ojam."

"Water under the bridge if you'd so kindly also refill the sign with your human magic, Monster Mage."

Cter stopped at the edge of her bar stool. "Human magic? You mean Sund's barrier magic?"

"His discovery, right? Real human magic from his soul? Isn't it for all humans, that magic?"

Cter shook her head. "No." And again. "No, it's not."

"Oh." The slime monster was a bit stunned at the prospect. "So you can't refill it?"

"I can't."

"Damn."

However though, with how easily Cter managed to only transfer herself and not anything of Bonny Sallus to the slime monster… "Maybe on the way back I can refill it?" she offered. "It'll be good until then?"

"Should be," said the slime monster with another amorphous shrug. "I'll have the porcupine waiting for you with another drink if you want then?"

Why not? "Sure."

"Then best of luck with your continued travel then, Monster Mage!"

As Cter closed the door behind her she looked up to the upside-down, white monster soul pulsating gently. She didn't notice it years ago when she first laid eyes on it, but it was Sund's barrier magic filling the cut-out shape.

Protecting the slime monster from his own emotions.

So that's what Monster Mages did outside the castle.

Magical ice cubes refracting rainbows too for the child running up from her griffin aunt to wave with her ginger-colored paws to give to all her friends, but to also keep one in her green blouse pocket for herself.

"Do you think I can see dad through this one, auntie Glenne?"

The carriage creaked loudly as Cter dove back into it.

Back on the road!

Quickly!