To say that Cter slept well in her old bed was to say that a starving man was feeling a bit peckish.

The instant she closed her eyes her entire body and soul just melted into the puffy mattress made from monster feathers. It wasn't as comfortable as her bed in her room in the Jarasevo Castle tower, but it was leagues ahead more comforting than the silk cover laundered daily. The cover in her old room still had a scent of her previous smell. The shivers she had from both the anxiety and excitement of traveling to Soul's School the next day rocked her to sleep as a Monster Mage. The shivers reminded her of how far she'd come.

To her own bed.

Cter fell asleep with the thought in her head, smiling widely and with a perfect sense of feeling content with her life.

The dinner she had with her family helped as well with that sensation, of course. A warm, supple supper just like her nostalgia had remembered them. Her parents on either of her sides, and with Romrom on the opposite side of the tablecloth sprinkled with sewed names. The mellow afternoon breeze tugging at the weights dangling off the four cloth corners was the same one that Cter let wash around her as she sat on the wide, stone window sill of her Jarasevo tower window looking back towards Hjearta. She knew it. All the way down to her soul she knew that the breeze was the same.

The breeze that told her that she was home.

It wasn't the one that blew through the window of the carriage, that was for certain. That one was colder. It had a whiff of sap and evergreen needles to it though. The smell of travel? No, that wasn't true. It didn't smell of sap and evergreen needles when she traveled through Xoff with Kurant. Although that could've been their driver souring the air before he let it into the carriage room. The one Cter had on her Hjearta travels had been better. More quieter. Up for a conversation when Cter felt like she had to talk to someone lest her mind try and escape through the window to go look for company elsewhere.

Since her memories with Bonny Sallus weren't really strong in the relationship sense it was hard for Cter to talk or prompt his memories to feel with her like she could with Romrom's memories. More power, but less closeness. The closeness she had to build herself in order to understand it from the outside in so that when the time came she could change Bonny's magic to whatever it was he desired it to be.

Cter rubbed away some dirt on the Delta Rune glowing gently on the back of her sleeved hand. With a quick blow she discarded the rubbed-off dirt out the window to join the outside once again. It had been some time since she paid any real attention to the symbol. It had become like noise to her mind seeing it displayed wherever it could be in Jarasevo Castle. Even underneath the corners of the long hallway carpets that she sometimes tripped on. Only Sir Gerson could've really conjured up the idea of having Delta Rune symbols underneath where people would most likely trip on. His preparedness knew no bounds.

Finding a Delta Rune on the silk cover in the morning when there were none there the night before was perhaps a bit too far though.

"Do you know where the Delta Rune originated from, Cter?" Romrom had asked her after the family supper as the four sat with a nice bottle of Royal Wine opened between them. She had tapped on the symbol with one of her talons on her hand. "It is actually from Queen Toriel's family, and not King Asgore's. When King Asgore's parents ruled there wasn't a Delta Rune in sight. It has become a symbol of human and monster cooperation ever since though. It's no wonder it glows so beautifully on the back of your hand."

"You should display it more," Cter's mother had added while her daughter looked halfheartedly at the magical symbol. "Tell you what, there was this man that came through town I think a year or so after you departed for Soul's School. Tall, strong, very handsome man." She gave Cter's father a blown kiss to make it clear that she didn't mean that the traveler was too tall, too strong, or too handsome. It worked...sorta. "Anyways, the man had a variety of fantastical stories that captivated the village as he told them. During one of his stories of a legendary stone mask he spread his hand and fingers in front of his hand to show how it would reach out with stone clasps and curse its wielder. If we ignore the whole curse part, the gesture itself would be great for you to display your Delta Rune, don't you think?"

Cter had glanced down at the almost empty wine glass stood in front of her mother a bit too close to the edge of the table.

"The man was a peculiar case though. His stories even more so. Strange, unusual, ridiculous, fantastic, bizar–"

"Yes," Cter had interrupted. She got the point.

"I was inclined to believe his stories though. His posture shifted quite vividly as he told them, almost as if he was reliving them in the moment. Always at an angle, the fella. Never was straight, how he did stand."

"「STAND」?!"

Cter had no idea what came over her all of a sudden. Perhaps there was some cork in her wine or something. She became lightheaded due to how tightly her body tensed up.

"Yes…" her mother nodded slowly, her too casting a glance at the wine glass that was almost empty in front of Cter. "His name was Jonte Joestjearna, should you ever bump into him again. Don't think you will though, he wandered off God knows where afterwards."

"I think the hand gesture is a great idea though, Cter," encouraged Romrom immediately afterwards. "Go ahead, try it."

Even as Cter repeated the gesture in the carriage alone the day after she was still overtaken by a sense of importance and gravitas with her fingers spread in front of her face. She was cast in a shadowy veil of mystique and power, but with the glow of her spiraling lines illuminating with trust.

Intoxicating.

Or maybe that was the curse that Joestjearna talked about?

Nah, couldn't have been.

Cter crushed her spread-out fingers into a tight fist, then opened them up just as quickly with a raging flame inside her hand. She peered through the fire, its power and ferocity mimicking that what she held in her soul, but not even close to the limit she could achieve.

Very intoxicating indeed.

Not as much as what the Royal Wine did to her and her family.

But still.

After Cter had made the gesture herself for the first time things became quite mellow with the family. Not as much talking, but more just enjoying the company as best could be. All four knew that Cter would have to leave the following day, so the most important to do before that was to try and catch up on all the quiet time they had all missed together. Talking is good and all, but what made a family was the quiet time they could all just let roll on for as long as possible. They didn't need to talk to know and feel that they were family. That trust, that quiet, that is what made a family.

That is what Cter enjoyed the most from the time she spent in her old village. The few hours at the dinner table in familial silence watching the angle of the shadow from the table vase turn and become longer across the tablecloth.

A different quiet from what she had alone in the carriage.

During those few hours her aura was her family's. Even with her inert human mother and human father they were all together in the aura. Together in mind, heart, and soul. Love permeating the inertness, becoming inertia instead for the aura. It still lingered inside Cter's sleeve as she sat alone in the carriage. The inertia still had the arcane lines glow in succession as it still reverberated up and down her sleeve. She thought herself seeing the spiraling line grow just a bit because of it. Widening and becoming more robust, in a way.

She didn't have any opportunity to test if that was the case. She sure hoped and felt that the case was true, but she would have to test it. Perhaps Priestess Frioke would be able to give a conclusive answer when Cter returned to Jarasevo castle, but Cter wanted to test it out herself.

Lifting up the carriage with stasis magic and throwing it too hard so that it slammed into the trees on the side of the road wasn't perhaps the best idea to test though, considering. She could test it later. Maybe at Soul's School? Or maybe at Fenkeep Castle?

A trader's carriage loaded with barrels and driven by a brown-orange jester monsters passed by Cter's window. The monster must've noticed Cter's aura from flaunting her pose, but if it realized that it was a magical aura that tingled or if it was something else Cter didn't catch. The road had become a bit more traveled, a bit more busy, ever since an hour away from Cter's village. Hard-packed ground had given way to stone which rattled underneath the large wooden wheels. Not enough for Cter to experience any discomfort, but enough for her to notice. If it was to worsen though she'd use her magic to smooth the ride.

Funnily enough the jester monster wasn't the first monster she'd seen on the road from her village, not even the second or third either. It had been a rather even split. She knew that the area immediately around Soul's School had an abnormally-large ratio of monster to humans, but that it stretched weeks of travel away from the school wasn't the story when she traveled the same path as a would-be student. There couldn't have been such a large influx of monsters from Monster Country into Hjearta in the relatively short time span Cter had been away, surely.

If so then why was she even given the task of promoting monster cooperation with humans if monsters seemed to just pour into the country even before she even wore her first sleeve?

Strange.

Although, perhaps she was just noticing the monsters more? Compared to the magical potential she could feel when she was on her first travel to Soul's School Cter was a sun to her previous self as a candle on its last flicker. Had Hjearta been so dense with monster for so long? Then why again did she have the task of promoting monster cooperation? Was it in response to Terri Fyed hurrying back and forth without as much as a stop? Cter had to show that mages did indeed care? Was it more for the monster in Hjearta than it was the humans that she was tasked with visiting as many villages as possible?

Looking at it from that angle gave Cter's task a bit more of sense to it, but then again, if monsters are literally driving trade then again why were Cter's presence needed? Even if the reflection changed color from Cter looking at the glass from another angle it was still filled with water.

Another option was of course that she was thinking too much about it. Kurant did promise that Cter would have a simple and easy assignment for her first mission on her own. Making pretty sparks for the humans to be in awe and letting monsters experience her powerful aura was indeed easy, maybe the most easiest mission Cter had ever had. Even then there were hiccups, what with the turtle elder dumping weight from her shoulders onto Cter's.

Same kinda with Romrom only nodding at Cter's infatuated exclamation that she had fulfilled her promise. That she had traveled to Xoff and managed to fetch some silk for Romrom to finally touch. Cter almost had to yank Romrom's hand onto her green robe for Romrom to pique at the touch of it. Almost like Romrom didn't have any actual memory of Cter making the promise to her. However brief that interaction went by it did haunt Cter for a bit. It was why she chose to walk around the village on the sawdust-covered path rather than through it. She needed some time to mull it over before she faced the crowd. Once she bumped into her father though the thoughts all disappeared from how happy she was to see him again.

It briefly returned after the dinner when the Royal Wine had become half empty. When Cter's mom took notice at the shimmer of Cter's robe from the sunset rays through the kitchen window. Her touch was exploratory over the barely-visible seams. The arm, shoulder, neck, back, outside, inside. Cter's mother was both jealous and impressed at the expertise. She was so proud that her own daughter was wearing such exquisite cloth, but at the same time she was jealous that it wasn't her that had sewn in for her own daughter. Conflicted, but leaning towards positive more than the negative.

Cter's father teased Romrom with that she finally had a daughter which had managed to reach Xoff for her, but the reaction he got back from his mother-in-soul wasn't as snappy or interested as he suspected. It was more a reaction of someone who did not get the joke, but did not want it to be shown.

If so then who did Cter get the robe for?

Idyll couldn't believe that Cter only became a mage to fulfill a promise that her grandmother had asked of her. To travel to another country and bring back a piece of Xoff silk. Cter did defend that it was the journey that mattered, and it did. She couldn't really let go of it though. Couldn't let go of the promise. Couldn't let go of her home village.

Her home…

Kurant said that Cter needed to keep her human roots always in mind. To not lose track and keep herself humble despite the heights she had reached. Keep where you came from in mind to never lose footing and for things to crumble underneath as she kept building and building.

However, Kry said that Cter needed to let go of her human roots. To not be held back by the weights of nostalgia and to be shackled by not wanting to take another step further than she had ever been away from home. To reject the part of her humanity that kept her from becoming the monster she needed to be.

Maybe that Romrom slipped the promise out of her mind was a good sign then?

Inadvertently helped Cter with finding a middle ground between the two of her colleagues' advice?

That promise was no more after Cter had visited her village. It wasn't what drove her no longer. The Xoff robe she wore was of her own doing. Of her own volition and motivation. From that, her magic. Her magic wasn't to reach that goal, to fulfill that promise, no longer, no. It was good that Romrom didn't acknowledge it!

Cter could still remember her human family, yet still reject the humanity that was her fulfilling her promise to her monster grandmother. It was never fulfilled, and it never would!

Left hand up to her face.

Fingers spread.

Delta Rune glowing.

Upper body angled.

Legs frozen mid-dance.

"I am Cter."

Her voice and name was escorted by her intensifying aura filling the carriage like the thick steam from cold water poured onto the hot stones in a sauna.

"The Fourth Monster Mage."

A push of wind rushed outwards from her closed fist, throwing back her hair and mantle with grandiose display, and with an even forceful gust thrown before her.

"I..."

No.

"You..."

Not really that either.

"Behold..."

Too dramatic.

"Bask..."

Just the same.

"Bleh!"

The grandiose display melted away, with Cter sinking into the backrest of her seat as she blew an exasperated raspberry through loosened lips.

Perhaps just the two were enough as an introduction? Her stating her name and title? Then the poof with her closed fist so that her Delta Rune shone brighter and so that her hair and clothes blew in a grandiose statement with gravitas worthy of her stated name and title.

Mayhaps, even?

At least she got some of her thoughts sorted out through all of that. She did feel a bit lighter from have worked it out. Cter came to realize that she didn't consult Sund in the matter, actually. To be honest though he didn't really strike Cter as someone who'd give such advice. Not in a bad sense though. If anything his background was very similar to that of Cter's. His advice would've been similar to that Cter would've given in that situation.

What advice would she have given though? What would she have said to herself asking for advice regarding the balance of human and monster?

She leaned forwards on her seat with her hands folded underneath her nose. Her brow furrowed as she tried to picture herself on the other side of the carriage. Maybe she could've conjured up a reflection of herself to help visualize, but that in a sense would've been a bit too much. She only wanted to ask herself, not to answer it. That answer she had already figured out, so manifesting an expression of herself with the answer already worked out wouldn't help her to shift her mind to not having the answer already on hand.

Besides, if another carriage was to pass her by the driver would've been quite spooked by the conjured, voluminous image of a human sitting opposite of its fleshy self, be it human or monster.

So what was her advice then?

"What is human to you? At the same time what is monster to you?"

Yes.

"Because to you being human can be the same as being monster to someone else."

Yes.

"You need to have your feet firmly planted on both of those grounds, with each leg as sturdy as the other one. There can't be any wobble in your knees or cracks in the ground below you. Before you can blend the two in your soul you need to know which is which. Each one leaves a void filled by the other. Before you can make gray you need black and you need white. When you have that you can create the other colors, but only then."

Cter smiled at her own words. She indulged herself with pride at it. Didn't bother to write it down though. It came from her heart, from her soul, so there was no need. It was how she felt about it, purely. She could be awoken in the middle of the night from then on and give the exact same advice. The air in the carriage was the same as when Kurant and Kry gave their own takes. Their own views on what constitutes as humanity to them.

It meant Cter was one more step along her path as a Monster Mage.

There was still paths yet to traverse though.

Through Hjearta, for starters.

Towards Soul's School.