"Wipe your feet."

The simple, wooden door closed on its squeaky own having let in the one that left years ago as a human and entered next time a Monster Mage. Said Monster Mage stood in the hallway on the recently freshened carpet sewn together by the thickest scraps left from her mother's work. It was just as colorful as a broken rainbow hastily repaired so that no one would notice. Enough so that no one really had to be told that they needed to wipe their feet before stepping on it. As if anyone would want to stain the structured-through-chaotic pattern.

Especially not the daughter who'd just stepped through the door after years of absence.

Perhaps Cter's mother didn't realize that it was her?

"It's me," Cter shouted towards the kitchen. "Cter. Your daughter."

The chestnut-brown hair of her mother flowed like an extended wing out the kitchen door frame. "I know," stated Cter's mom with a twinkle in her smile unveiled by her hair. "I could tell the moment your hand tugged at the handle." Another twinkle glared in the sun peeking over Cter's shoulders. "I'm your mother, of course I knew." Not a twinkle in her mother's smile though. "And you've been out of country, even to Xoff, child." Nor in her eyes. "I can tell by the pattern of the silk on your robe." It was a twinkle outside of her eyes. "So wipe off the dirt you've brought with you from three countries, please." On the glasses that she wore. "I'll have dinner ready soon."

She didn't when Cter saw her last. When they met for the brief time during Cter's graduation from Soul's School her mother didn't wear any glasses.

"What's the matter, child?"

Time had passed.

"Oh no… Come here."

Time Cter had missed.

"Shh, shh, shh."

Time she'd been away.

"I didn't mean to sound like I wasn't happy seeing you, child." Soft hands stroked long and longing through the inherited chestnut-brown hair. "This isn't how I wanted you to react." At least those were exactly like before. "Your arrival reached me much earlier today, Cter. Gossip travels so fast through this village, you know that. I've had almost a dozen visits today asking for you. I haven't gotten time to get anything done today!"

She smelled just the same too.

"It's like you've been here for a week already with how many times people have come to visit you. Seeing you now though..."

And her cheek pushed just as softly against Cter's.

"That week has all but disappeared."

Her tears´were warm and wet while rolling down with a splash against the pushed-together cheeks.

"It's you..."

Her kisses bounced hard and lovingly.

"My child!"

Her hugs squeezing the life out of Cter so that she could give all of hers in return.

"Welcome home!"

The hard, metallic rim pushing against Cter's forehead was cold though.

Alien.

It was just one change among many that had stayed the same though.

Cter heaved a weary sigh of relief over her mother's shoulder which she nuzzled deeper into.

"I'm home, mom."

The nod from the mother was identical from the one from the daughter.

"You're home, Cter."

It was a good cry the two shared. No sadness in sight. Only happiness dancing around the two as they stood on the square-felt carpet embracing as only mother and daughter could. Even Cter's aura felt content despite her mother's lack of one. The magic she'd given her father still resonated within her soul. That she let cascade out into her aura like a dam shattering from pressure. Cter let her mother drown in it. Even if she couldn't feel it she'd still know what Cter did. Magic could do much, its bond between human and monster was strong.

Not as strong as what Cter felt seeing her mother and father again though. A depth to her soul she didn't know existed. As the flush of her spiraling line reflected in her mother's new glasses, Cter knew. She knew that she still had much to discover.

Later though.

She had her mother to hug for the moment.

"I gave dad some magic to help him with clearing the willow," said Cter after a long, enjoyable minute of quiet and feeling her mother's breaths against hers.

"You did?" her mother replied with her jaw bouncing on Cter's shoulder. "You can do that with magic?"

"I can, mom," Cter made clear. "It's what made me a Monster Mage." She let her lines grow down the white sleeves of her mother's traditional dress lapped with green, red, and black. "You know the bonfires during summer solstice?"

"I do, child."

To welcome the summer and to add clouds to the skies with the smoke. "How it is ignited by the snap of one of the monster's fingers?" To make sure the winter don't come back until when it is supposed to.

"Mhm," nodded Cter's mother again, unaware of the orange-red magical lines that ran down her white sleeve like rivers of seasoned honey. "The last one was ignited by the Tjaerson's son. He that takes his ice drake father's ice-green color and his mother's bear-hunch forward? Took him a few tries since the wood was wet from the rain the day before. It didn't stop him though. Eventually he shoved his ignited arms as deep as he could into the wood to reach the tinder in the middle. Managed to get charred splinters because of that. I've never seen a child both cheer from the applause he received while at the same time crying because he got splinters in his arms."

Huh…

Cter thought the Tjearson's son would've grown up with more of his mother's magic. Despite having his father's color he always was more like his mother. Fire magic instead of deep-blue magic? Oh well.

"You know how you and the other human ladies in the village always made the same joke about how convenient it would be to just snap your finger for fire every single year, mom?"

The motherly scoff was filled with laughter. "You say that you don't need an extra set of undergarments when you leave to become a human mage yet you carry this with you until you become a Monster Mage?" The kiss on the daughter's cheek had a bit more of a sharp bounce to it than the previous ones. "When can you be my daughter instead of your father's for once, Cter?"

She didn't notice!

Cter's mom crossed her arms and she didn't notice the lines her daughter had given her!

Perfect!

"When you can snap a fire you too," was Cter's answer on the brink of a snicker to ruin the surprise. "Why don't you try?"

With bated breath Cter watched her mother's right arm angle upright with her fingers pushing against each other, ready for a snap. "Like this?" The raised eyebrow behind the rounded rim of the glasses sank like a stone as the tender seamstress hand was filled with a purposeful flicker that expanded with fiery life into a flame fit for a king. "Cter!" her mom yelled in reaction while throwing her arm away from her. Seeing no reaction from her daughter though, besides the hand failing to hide a building laughter, Cter's mom's brow sank even further. "Cter!" she shouted again, her shock replaced with a disappointed anger. With her left arm she shoved at her daughter's shoulder. "Against your own mother!"

Other than that she took it surprisingly well. "You've held fire magic in your hand before?" Cter wondered while rubbing her shoved shoulder. "Also shoving your own daughter?" she accused with fake hurtfulness in her voice. "After coming back after so many years?"

"Oh you–" Cter's mother wanted to curse, but the part of her that loved Cter to no end held her tongue. She was not happy about that side of her at that moment. "You changeling!" she managed to blurt out with a hefty shake to her head.

"Hah!" gloated Cter in the face of her mother. "Dad said that before you!" She giggled through her clamped lips.

"If you're saying this to further tease me about us two becoming more like the other you can jolly well carriage on your wayward, daughter." That wasn't the worst of it though. "Without any dinner!"

That was.

"Even after me fulfilling your dream of having fire at and from your fingertips?" The ice Cter stood on was thinner than paper. "I'm your daughter, aren't I?"

"How can you be my daughter if you haven't wiped your feet still?" Cter's mother began throwing down her right hand at Cter's feet, but switched to her left as she saw the magical fire streak down with her right hand. "And the stew's about to burn too!" The flames erupted and licked the ceiling. Cter didn't give it any heat though so there was no damage done. Besides a few more years being taken away from Cter's mom's life after her second shocked gasp filled the hallway. Both her hands balled underneath her chin while she uttered a held-back groan.

Cter embraced her mother once again, making sure her Xoff robe and Monster Country mantle caressed the Hjearta seamstress. "I love you, mom," Cter said sincerely to tease.

"You can't say that now."

She could, and did. "I love you so much."

"Stop."

"With all my heart."

"I want to be angry with you."

As if she could.

Ever.

"And all of my soul. I love you with all of my soul too, mom."

"Stop it!"

Kisses bounced on the cheek flush with annoyance at not being able to be mad with her own daughter. A scowl tried fruitlessly to fight against an entire face full of smile. Against the eyes softening behind the hard glass and metallic rim.

"You're not getting any dessert!"

The threat was emptier than a bucket made out of air. "I am," Cter said without worry. Her forehead touched her mother's. "And I'm gonna have a second helping too." And for the final strike to win the war. "I'm hungry, mom."

The capitulation was both swift and unconditional. A defeated sigh fluttered down onto the green Xoff silk. "You're hungry..." Cter's mother said along with the sigh. "Probably really hungry too?"

"Almost starving."

Cter's mom slapped the hair hanging down cheek her daughter's cheek. "Oh how I hate that I love you." It swung back and mingled with her own. From the outside there was none who could see the difference. "Even if you're just your father's daughter right now." With a gentle push Cter's was moved back a step. "But even my husband's daughter needs to clean her feet before she's allowed across the rainbow."

Neither Cter's father nor her mother raised a bad winner, so that she could agree to do. After a bend Cter placed her shoes on the rack where she'd fetched her old ones for the last time. The ones she put in their place were higher, almost up to her knees. A bit more functional than the ones she wore back at Jarasevo Castle. Walking around in the ceremonial shoes on dirt and sawdust roads would've been hell and a half. Cter could've most likely just conjured some thicker soles, but who was she to deny a new pair of fitted boots?

With a flick of her left hand she had the flopped-over leather of her boots stand up straight like they were filled. It gave them a more proper look standing between the old and used ones of her mother and father's proper Sunday boots.

Maybe a bit too high above them though.

Cter moved her shoes down onto the floor, equalizing the height.

"Nice."

The kitchen had not changed at all since Cter left for Soul's School. All the pots and pans were stacked just the same. The cupboard's flaps were still slightly ill-fitted from the time her cousin and she snooped around for nightly jam to eat. The table still had the old, home-sewn cloth on it with the names of the extended family as embroidery on it. Romrom's name was still barely legible with her crow's feet of handwriting. Cter's name still had the stain underneath it for when she spilled wax from moving the candle closer to her to better see the needle she was struggling with to use.

The tentacle-headed monster sticking their entire upper body through the opened kitchen window.

Wait…

No.

That was different.

"So it is you that's the Monster Mage, Cter!" the tentacle-headed monster exclaimed with her wine-red tentacles hitting the window frame in quick, excited succession. "I can't believe it."

Cter had no idea who the monster was. She looked to her mother, who only traded a greeting with the monster before returning to her stewing. "Just a big a surprise for me as it is for you," Cter agreed with a friendly shrug. "Seems like people have been asking for me here the entire day."

"Word travels fast around here," said the monster with a smile on its vertical mouth that had Cter fighting the instinct to turn her head ear-up. "I'm assuming you're on your way to the castle, correct?"

"After a quick stop at Soul's School, yes." Cter began to look for somewhere to stand that wasn't in the door frame. With how friendly the tentacled monster was Cter was feeling some slight claustrophobia. She'd forgotten completely how tight-knit a village could be. During the first weeks of her stay in Jarasevo it was as if she was isolated and hated by just the sheer volume of monsters that just passed her by without any greeting whatsoever. She'd turned that coin right around, hadn't she? "After that it should be straight to the castle without any more stops besides logistics."

The tentacles whipped behind the monster's head as she nodded with interest at what Cter said. "I see. I see. Well, you've certainly done more than any of the Royal Mages here with visiting us. Terri Fyed did not pass by here, he did not. Even when he passed close by on his way to Monster Country he still couldn't be bothered." The monster scoffed to the side while leaning more firmly onto the window sill. "Our village is enough for a Monster Mage to visit from Monster Country but not the Royal Mage from Fenkeep Castle?" A cyan glow began to take a swirling shape in one of her tentacles. "The Ice Mage sure living up to his reputation by giving everyone the cold shoulder."

The head turn gave Cter the opportunity to step fully into the kitchen so that she could talk to the monster without having to angle her head. "Well my mission here is to spread the goodwill of Monster Country and to promote further cooperation between humans and monsters."

"Yet you've not asked if I need any help with the stew, dear," quipped Cter's mother with a titter. "You could set the table though." The back of the wooden spoon that had been used for as long as Cter could remember was pointed towards the cupboards with the fully fitted flaps. "Same place as you remember them."

"And so what was Terri Fyed's mission then that required him to speed through the country like he was on ice skates, fittingly?" the monster questioned with a slight hint of suspicion. "Hurried towards Jarasevo, was that it?"

Cter's mom did not say anything to Cter taking out four wooden bowl from the cupboard, so it meant that whoever the tentacle monster was she was not invited to stay for dinner. "That I wouldn't know personally," Cter answered while setting the bowls down where Romrom's, her father's, her mother's, and her own name where embroidered in the tablecloth. "I wasn't present for his visit. What I've heard though is that he sought to demonstrate his ice magic to the Monster Priestess Frioke."

"For what reason?"

"Well for us it meant that the wine cellar filled with Royal Purple has been kept cool for months."

The quick slurp for taste from the well-used wooden spoon was cut shorter than the short it was meant to be. "Us?" Cter's mom repeated with a drop of stew balancing on her lower lip. She dried it off with a swipe of her thumb. "You mean you and the other Monster Mages?" That she then sucked it off her thumb was unlike her.

It took a second or two for Cter to let that slide from her mind. "Yes, us at the castle. Since Terri Fyed then apparently hurried away to Xoff quicker than he arrived I'm guessing he got his approval from Priestess Frioke as he wanted. The Royal Mages from both Xoff and Hjearta have to be approved by the Monster Priestess for their magic and be received her blessing to become a new Royal Mage. That way both human countries don't feel like the other is trying to build a more powerful court of mages. With Monster Country as the mediator things are kept level."

It also put the Royal Mages in debt to Monster Country which was another layer of security implemented by Sir Gerson. Cter's mother nor the tentacled monster did not need to know that though.

"One would think Terri Fyed would want to wave that approval around, wouldn't he?" pondered the monster in the window as Cter went to fetch the mugs next. "It's not that we've had anything major that needed his attention lately."

Well…

"Perhaps it's because he hurried that you don't know about it?" Cter suggested at the placing of the last of the four mugs for a bit more effect. "Even with how fast words spread around here the word must first reach here. Can't talk if there's nothing to talk about."

It was almost guaranteed that such was the case. Cter knew too much herself that she couldn't talk about to put any other scenario in her mind. The tentacled monster was correct in that a new Royal Mage speeding through Hjearta, then Monster Country, then over Xoff, then back through Hjearta again without as much as a toast to his new title was strange. That he hurried his way back through Xoff was understandable since he most likely wanted to get back home.

Through Hjearta though?

The spoon in Cter's hand tapped against the rim of the opened cutlery drawer as she thought through some scenarios.

None were particularly good, so she stopped quite immediately. The monster in the window was already trying to be discreet with her aura prodding at Cter's, and if she would've figured something the monster surely would've perked and questioned some more. "But like I said, I wouldn't know anything about that," Cter deflected with a final, harder tap that spun the spoon for her to catch. "It is human business."

Cter's mother and the monster in the window traded a long look between each other. Their fathom was phantom at what Cter said.

Fair enough that her mother reacted that way. Cter had been human to her ever since Cter was born. That Cter would come back after years to state that business not regarding her was human business was understandably strange to the ears hidden within the inherited chestnut-born hair. That the window monster's brow sank just as much though despite Cter's aura being distinctively monster?

Who was she, really?

"So...how long are you staying?" came a tortured extension to the conversation with a tentacled tilt of the monster's head. "The night, at least?"

"Yes," answered Cter with an absent mind as she looked over the table she'd set. It wasn't something to really take pride in. Functional. Nothing more, nothing less. "I'll be continuing my travels tomorrow."

"When? I'm sure the village will want to wave you goodbye."

"Whenever my carriage is restocked."

That didn't really fly with the monster. "So?" she piqued with a raised eyebrow. "Around lunch? After? Before?"

"It all depends on tomorrow." Wasn't that clear enough? "It won't be a quiet event, and with how word travels fast around here..." That must've been clear enough.

It was with a slow and rather irate push that the monster pushed herself up straight. "Alright, I see how it is." Her vertical mouth again thinned into a warm smile as she looked over to Cter's mother. "Miah took his first steps today, by the way. Just thought you wanted to know."

"Oh he did?" perked Cter's mother. "Do send my congratulations, will you?"

"I will." The monster turned to Cter. "Yours as well."

"By all means."

"Speaking will be enough."

And with that the monster waved goodbye and disappeared behind the wooden walls.

Cter waited for a minute to be perfectly sure that only her mother would hear her question. "So who was she?" Despite the wait the words came out a bit too quick for how Cter wanted them to be.

Her mother very much did predict the question. "Leack," she said while returning to her stew that had begun to smell complex finally. "Came on her own a few years ago and lives on her own on the other side of the village. Don't have family on her own, so she made the entire village her family. Since you're my daughter I guess she saw you as family instantly too. Do forgive her probing, will you?"

"Hm..."

She might have been a Feeler from Jarasevo. A few years ago was when Cter graduated from Soul's School. Seemed like a bit too big a coincidence.

Luckily Cter's thought didn't have time to fester as the opened window brought inside another conversation.

"Strength magic was well enough. I'm not gonna ask Cter for more."

Of Cter's father.

"Surely you're plucking at my feathers now? A pair of conjured legs would be great for that rusty wheelbarrow that you refuse to have changed."

And her monster grandmother.

"Because it still works. Also, a pair of magical legs for the wheelbarrow? You complain that I can't dance at all and now you suggest that I should rhythm myself with my wheelbarrow's legs too?"

Cter and her mother traded glances.

"You don't have to act manly still now that you've been married to my daughter for more years than I have feathers on my fingers."

They both giggled as the pair of long shadows stretched by the setting sun briefly ran across the white-painted frame.

"Oh how could I ever forget with your constant reminders, mother-in-soul."

It was gonna be just like before. Before big deals and magic.

"You think you can do magic now too?"

It was gonna be a normal family dinner.

"One Monster Mage is enough for your legacy, Romrom."