"Please do excuse the mess, Monster Mages."
That Ziki was actually caring in the slightest about the state of his rudimentary emergency office inside one of the closed stores at the edge of the village square was both strange and comforting at the same time to Cter. On the one hand it shouldn't have been anything that he would feel the need to ask forgiveness for considering what had led to it. On the other hand Cter recognized the panicked mess of papers and hastily stacked towers of notes that were organized through no logic at all and tilting heavily over to one side enough that Sund was forced to keep it standing with stasis magic as Ziki rounded it.
It looked the same as her student room was the week leading up to the final exam at Soul's School.
"This here is the communication I've managed to start with the monsters in this section of Xoff," Ziki began as he touched gently at one stack of varied papers. His white hand then moved over to the stack of papers with more uniform color to it. "These are the pages I've copied from the official announcements that have either reached the village or been relayed from some of the monsters living in the other villages." It was a much, much smaller pile. "This last pile is my personal report on the matter." Illegible.
"Like I said before," Ziki explained with his head lowered and his lips curled with inner pain, "I haven't had the time or words to properly describe the situation. With my station being out of the way from the village I decided to move operations here so that I can be closer to the children. I asked the daughter of the owner of this store if I could use it. She...passed away a week after I managed to move everything here."
So that Ziki would not lose himself to his memories again, Cter's eyes moved over to the largest stack that the Royal Guard hadn't mentioned. "And that one?" As she asked she could feel his aura churn with a heavy, sinking feeling. It was the same sinking feeling as she had tried to move him away from, but only had him sinking deeper into. She knew already what the stack was of, yet still she asked.
Yet still she hoped that they weren't what she thought they were.
Death reports.
"I hadn't had time..."
From what Cter could glean before she averted her eyes the writing on them was clear and concise enough that ever her brief glance had her able to read more names than she ever wanted to. Ziki's priorities were proper though, which was a silver lining among the many yellow-faded pages fading more the further up the stack they laid. He used the best paper available to him for the death reports, it seemed. "It really is worse than we thought," said Cter with a heavy shake to her head. "Well...we didn't have any thought of it at all, really."
"The children didn't have any thought of hope or play before we arrived, Cter," Sund replied to his colleague's shoulders draining low and hanging. "And now they are playing the best they can with the magic that you gave them. Keep that in mind. It's the first step to us curing Xoff."
Sund was right. "Thank you." Cter had to weigh the sparse positives far more than the surrounding negatives. "I will." The leaning tower of papyri would still scare her as it chomped at the back of her head, but remembering the smiles that still glistened with joy despite the hollow cheeks that couldn't puff gave her the hope she needed to tackle what she had to.
"How are things up on Clinic Hill?" Sund asked as he took a chair propped on a nearby wall via stasis magic and brought it to the round table stacked with papers. "Has there been any word?"
Ziki began leafing through some of his spread-out papers. "Sparse ones at most," he said with a low brow that moved between the many pages entering and leaving his hands. "The last real communication was when Dr. Sallus requested that Manny would be brought up to Clinic Hill, and that was only relayed to the village secondarily." He handed Sund a scroll that Sund then opened in view for Cter as well. "As you can it was an order penned by the Xoff military and not Dr. Sallus directly."
"So there is a military presence at Clinic Hill?" Sund asked into the scroll that he and Cter read through. "That's...not the best information." Once he confirmed with Cter via a nod that she was done reading it too he handed the scroll back to Ziki. "Any intelligence you have about them?" It could have just as likely been Sund asking in times of war rather than in times of plague. "We spotted a new road leading up to Clinic Hill over its yonder that we assumed was made due to the escalating plague. Does that have any relevance to what you have found out?"
"Yes and no," answered Ziki while rubbing his forehead which inadvertently caused his tail to waggle a bit. "There is a military presence on the other side of Clinic Hill, but how big it is I have no idea. The presence from what I have seen is purely for transporting patients up the hill. The more the weeks passed the slower the patients were carried up the hill, so there has been a reduction in the presence over time."
He didn't say anything about transportation down the hill…
Which meant that the smoke stacks were...
Before Cter could allow herself to believe in what she already knew clearly, she spoke. "Only bringing them up? What do you mean?" She knew exactly what Ziki meant, but a small part of her still hoped that she was wrong!
"The smoke stacks have been churning without stopping for over a month now, Monster Mage."
...
Dammit.
Sund didn't give Cter any room to dwell. "So how would we get a message up to Dr. Sallus that me and Cter have arrived without alerting the Xoff military?" He wasn't gotta let her mind have time to wallow in the sorrow. They both had to keep focus, not just Sund. "Right now that is a priority that we've secured the only road leading into the village. The main one is blocked further up the road, probably at the request of Dr. Sallus, now that I think about it. Maybe the military road connects to it at that blockade?"
"It says quite a lot about how shattered the chain of command is for the humans that they forgot about the smaller road that you came from. Even if it was one or two convoys a week I still had to turn away a lot of sick humans. Not humans that were sick when they set off though, but ones that became sick on the way. The ones that were sick when they set off from their home village...well..."
"Another clear and concise name," answered Cter.
Ziki took a deep breath. "Yes." He then forced his attention back to what Sund had asked with a snappy turn of his head. "Since you're asking me I'm assuming that you don't just want to climb over the brick wall or steel fencing?"
"Did the military or Dr. Sallus put that up?"
The Royal Guard blinked at Cter. "That...that I don't actually know." He again flipped through his many papers, but couldn't find anything. "I would assume that the military did it, but you also mentioning Dr. Sallus in the same breath has the two sounding equally plausible." His hand rubbed his furry cheek, again causing his tail to whiff briefly. "The bricks and mortar are the same as the buildings on top of Clinic Hill, but the fencing is–"
The curved, white tail stopped dead at an angle as Ziki's eyes widened through a shortened gasp. "No..." fell from his stunned tongue between his fang that looked to be drooping. "It can't be..." A few seconds passed before he could meet the Monster Mages' eyes. "The fencing," he said but couldn't believe, causing his canine ears to droop even more than his fangs were. "It is made out of old hospital beds!"
They were?
"I've not had time to look at them in detail since I've passed them by in low evening or morning light, but now that I can think about it... When it was raised the humans that traveled here began to congregate on this side of it, spreading infection more here in Clinic Village as they desperately sought for aid. Clinic Village, so naturally it would be able to help, they thought. Well...eventually I made the decision to bar the road leading in here from the main road to prevent further infection here, but that was a decision I made far, far too late."
Ziki's pause to collect himself lasted for a long handful of seconds.
"Maybe not all of the fence is made out of the advanced clinic beds since that would be ludicrously expensive, but from the way you described them it sounds like the supporting structure of the fence are made out of the hospital beds used for surgeries and more-intricate procedures." Ziki's brow again lowered in thought as he heard his own words. "That would mean that they have no use of them."
He said it grimly, causing his brow to lower even further. "No use of surgeries, or at least not enough of uses of surgeries that the metal beds take up too much space. They were fastened in the floor and took up more space than what the more-simpler beds did stacked in storage. The simpler beds can be made easily under the supervision of the village carpenter, so perhaps that is a reason why some of the adults haven't returned yet!" The chair Ziki used went flying behind him as he rose quickly, disrupting his towers of papers enough that they began to fall over. Cter managed to catch them with her magic, but couldn't Ziki as he began to charge at the door. "I have to–"
"Royal Guard!" ordered Sund with an arm outstretched to block Ziki's rush. The wind from the Royal Guard's quick stop had the purple robe and hood lifting for a brief second before coming back down again. "I understand your desire to bring any and all hope to the children outside, but false hope can be as detriment as no hope in situations like these."
He was cold with his words, but it was necessary. The way Ziki had scrambled was too hectic and too excited for him to be able to be trusted with telling the children about what he had deduced, no matter if it was true or not. "I can agree with the fencing being constructed with surgery beds, but I can not agree with the next step in your logic."
Ziki's aura raged with unfair anger for a brief moment before he managed to cool it back down. In that moment though, the look he gave to Sund was that of deadly injustice. A look that he came to regret immediately. "Forgive me, Monster Mage." He huffed out his anger towards his side. "I..." The anger he had at himself for letting his emotions take him over. "I've helped with transporting many of the beds up the hill before so I..."
"It's fine," said Sund with a nod back to Ziki's makeshift desk yet with his arm kept outstretched to still block the way to the door. "You're still stressed and are still worrying about the children, I understand that."
"With all due respect, Monster Mage," Ziki prefaced before sitting heavily down into his chair again, "I don't think you can understand."
"That's fair," replied Sund with his arm returned behind his back akin to Sir Gerson. "You understand though why I said it, right, Royal Guard?"
"I do, sir."
"Good."
The interaction had Cter slightly suspicious, bordering on slightly worried. She took a visible step forward to get the two's attention. "May I speak to you in private, Sund?" she posed to her colleague before turning to Ziki to explain why. "It's about changing Dr. Sallus' magic." She wasn't lying, but she wasn't speaking the truth either. "In the meanwhile, could you try and find anything about Manny amid your papers, Royal Guard?" She motioned for Sund to follow her out the storefront, and the two exited together.
"What is on your mind, Cter?" wondered Cter's colleague once outside. He let his eyes wander over the group of children playing weakly in the town square with Cter's gifted magic. Mostly showing off what they could do with her temporary Cooperative Connections, with flames, ice, and other various magics popping off like corks from the small, ragged hands. "Is it about the fence or the Xoff military?"
"Who am I speaking to?" Cter asked directly with a neutral tone to hide why she was asking. "Is it Sund, or is it Sir Gerson?"
The yellow-hinted furrow hardened and averted away.
"How much of Sir Gerson's influence have you let wash over you, Sund? I ask because I can't tell, and that has me worried. If you can't handle it yourself you ask me for help. I am a Monster Mage too, and I have gone through the exact-same training as you have. This is our first time facing a situation like this, and we have to be able to trust each other in this. If you rely on Sir Gerson more than you do me then how am I supposed to feel equal to you?"
A heavy exhale had Sund breathing out enough that his shoulders relaxed deeply. It looked that he must've breathed out Sir Gerson as well as he slumped his back against the storefront afterwards. "You're right," Sund said. Cter knew that it was him, and only him. She could tell, finally. "It's just that..." His shrug was innocent again, that's how she knew physically additionally to his aura. "I'm scared." He met Cter's eyes with his own slightly moistened ones. "It should be Kry or Kurant with you here, and not me. Their cloth are cut for this." Sund's sleeved hand arced gently in front of him, gesturing across the silent human village before returning to his chest. "My cloth isn't."
As if Cter's was though...
She almost scrambled away at the first sight of the sickly children! "I don't think there's any cloth that can be cut out for this, Sund." Cter had no qualms about letting her fear be heard in her voice and aura. The two were in it together, after all. "And I think I need to say that if you want to use Sir Gerson's influence then that's fine by me if you think it is necessary to manage this properly, but please let me know when you do it so that I know what you're doing. I'm not jealous or angry with you, but with communication falling down everywhere else we need to compensate for that between us, I feel."
Cter breathed out, slumping her back next to Sund's on the storefront wall with her hands loose from her shoulders. "Communication isn't really Sir Gerson's strongest suit is it," Sund remarked facetiously with a chuckled scoff as Cter's sigh joined the passing breeze. He took a second glance at the door to make sure that it was closed properly so that the breeze wouldn't disturb Ziki's papers. "I did it to try and relieve you, if that's a good enough of an excuse."
It was. Cter was thankful that he did step up, but she still felt that he should've said that he was gonna let Sir Gerson's influence from his sleeve do most of the talking. "Just let me know next time, alright? You're not the only one who's scared."
Sund's soft eyes moved towards the playing children sitting in a circle on a patch of grass laughing the best they could. Coughs interrupted the laughs, but to Sund's delight the laughs always regained in luster afterwards. "Not the only thing I'm kinda scared about, to be honest."
Really? "How so?" That had Cter a bit curious, to say the least.
The soft, red eyes moved across and around the human village. "It's been quite a while since I walked between these types of houses." His sleeved finger spun in the air to emphasize. "All this human architecture feels kinda strange to me. It reminds me that I've forgotten, in a sense. I feel slight discomfort knowing that I've not known, if that makes any sense?" He chuckled again after hearing his own words. "I retreat Sir Gerson's influence and immediately I become insecure." His sleeved hand came up to his forehead to massage. "Singe my soul."
Cter asked, so she should've expected an answer. That big an answer though? "I...see." Maybe a bit too big for her in the state that she was. She let her eyes wander back to the children. Even in their state, worse than Cter was in, they still kept hope and their spirits high. Their untrained auras were messy and unfocused to the point where they acted more like the hot shimmer off a road in the middle of the summer rather than any actual tell-tale sign of their emotions.
Contrasted with the heavy, slumping dark clouds that were Cter and Sund's auras it was like day and night.
"So how do you reckon we should do here?" said Sund after a long minute of silent watching. "A guess of mine would be that the crops haven't been tended to for a while, so one of us ought to keep that as a priority."
The crops? Why? "How long do you plan for us to stay here?" For quite a while, apparently. If they were gonna go tend to the crops then that meant at least a couple of months. "More after we have changed Dr. Sallus' magic?"
Sund shrugged. "Even if he fathoms a cure with the help of his new magic it is not going to heal the entirety of Xoff over just one night. If we extrapolate what Ziki has told about communications being shattered across the country then news about the cure might not even reach where it is needed for perhaps a year, maybe even two." It wasn't the biggest leaps. Certainly not as big as what Ziki had done with the surgery bed fences and beyond, yet still there was a clear tang inside Sund's aura that there was some emotion dictating what he said. "Xoff needs us Monster Mages."
"What about Kry and Kurant? They're Xoff natives and–"
"We're monsters," Sund interrupted. If he did it for his own sake or Cter's though she couldn't tell exactly. "Monster Country is our country. Besides, getting a message through to Kry and Kurant to switch with us will be too complicated and risk leaving the castle without any Monster Mages in it."
No, no it was definitely for his own sake. The squirm in his aura reverberated throughout him. He knew that Cter knew. "Why do you want to stay, Sund?"
"Won't be enough to say that since you're bringing your friend's brother back to the castle that the carriages will be too crowded and I don't really fancy sharing one with a human I've never met before?" Sund threw out as an excuse weak enough that it wouldn't be seen as anything but facetious. "Although I don't really think that you will be able to steal him away from Dr. Sallus, to be perfectly honest. Your friend's brother is one of Dr. Sallus' apprentices, so he's bound to be a bit busy come the immediate future, don't you think? And hey, he'll be needing plenty of grain to eat to help the good doctor out."
A lot of words to not really answer Cter's question in the slightest. Why was he so avoiding all of a sudden? "You promised you'd be more communicative," Cter reminded with an accusing nod. "So please, if you would?" Seemed like she had to be direct with him. "Tell me why you want to stay here for so long, Sund." He'd gotten his moment to deflect once, but once was enough.
Sund's sigh was aimed towards Monster Country far away in the distance past both Mt. Ebott and Mt. Ymmet. "It's not as much me wanting to stay here for a while and more that I don't want Kry or Kurant staying here for a while."
Oh…
"Well, Kurant, mostly."
Is that how it was?
"Kurant entirely, actually."
Cter had her guesses as to why. "Because of her knee or because of her soul?" The two were connected, quite strongly to boot, but there was still difference between the two. Her knee and her brace was an extension of her soul, and with Dr. Sallus' getting new magic focused on healing she would want to heal it as quickly as possible. It would risk them moving a bit too quickly with things, but that wouldn't come close to if it was because of–
"Her soul."
Dammit.
"You really think she's that close to relenting her title as Monster Mage?" Cter's eyes moved to where Sund's were looking in the far distance back towards Jarasevo Castle. "I think her magic would be enough to help around here."
"No, not that far," Sund answered with a scratch at his nose. "However I think it could have been the beginning of it. Planting the first, small seed of proper doubt within her about her abilities as a Monster Mage. That we'll finally find her upper limit and that she can't go no further. When that happens all of her feeling of her magic having stagnated will come crashing down over her like a great wave fueled by doubt and inner turmoil." Had it been any other conversation Sund would've accompanied his talking with some of his magic as an extra flair, but when it came to his closest friends and colleagues…
His closest colleague found it kinda...strange though. It wasn't Sir Gerson's influence that had Sund speak like that, but it certainly wasn't the Sund that Cter knew. She felt her brow lower with suspicion, prompting an amused giggle that had Sund's amber-orange fringe settle into a sideways part. "Why are you looking at me like that, Cter?" He raised the palm of his hand up in the air innocently. "I take pride in knowing about those close to me. It's why I always try and bring up the mood to counter all the formal and upnosed demeanor we're expected to have. Queen Toriel was a swearing bar maiden before she became the Duchess of Jarasevo and then eventually the Monster Queen, so..."
So what? Cter wasn't picking up what Sund was innocently shrugging about. "I don't..." She shook her head. "Nevermind." Sund's thinking was his own and his own alone. "So you want to stay here more so because it's better that you do it rather than Kurant does it?" That Cter could agree on. When she traveled with Kurant the first time to Clinic Hill the two talked quite a lot about keeping connections with the humanity that they were supposed to keep in balance with their monsterdom, and thus needing to push away their humanity to make room for their monsterdom.
While it did help Cter understand a bit more what it meant to be a Monster Mage, how Kurant described it showed that she still clung to her life as a human living in Xoff. If it was because of her soul's connection to her knee influencing her or vice versa wasn't a question Cter would ever ask Kurant no matter what, but still the fact remained.
Sund was right that it would have been a bit too much for her.
Well, it was a bit too much for Cter and Sund, so for Kurant it would have been way too much.
"And what about Kry?"
"He'd be the one inside this store looking for anything about Manny," answered Sund without pause. "Maybe even try and take over the communication and argue that his authority and legend as the first Monster Mage would be above the suspicion of the Xoff military finding out that a high-ranked foreigner was trying to run things. Sir Gerson was invited to train the military. He didn't waltz in and decide upon himself that it would be run his way."
"With Kry though it might just have worked," said Cter in reply with a shrug of her own. "If not Sir Gerson then Kry, as the saying goes in the castle."
"Fair point."
Another minute passed by with the two Monster Mages mutually agreeing that the two came to a good consensus. They communicated, which was all that Cter wanted, and because of that they were on the same page. It wouldn't have worked otherwise. Not worked in the slightest.
Speaking of work though.
"So do you want to tend to the crops if you feel uncomfortable among these human-made houses?" Cter didn't mean it to sound as back-handed as it did, especially after such a long pause of silence. "Since we want to be as efficient with our help as possible, that is."
"No."
No?
Cter looked through her flowing hair at her colleague looking back at her. "I can't help the humans if I feel discomfort around them because it's been a while since I forgot how they were, so I have to get that feeling comfortable again. The best way is for me to figure out things in the village while you tend to the crops. If that's all well and good with you?"
"Sure." Cter didn't really have anything against it. "I just also thought that you with your green fingers perhaps would be better at it?"
An amber eyebrow disappeared underneath the rough fringe. "The large panes of glass facing into the Royal Garden gives a pretty good view of the Monster King smiling like a child with his Fourth Monster Mage joining him in gardening with magic."
"Just healing magic but simpler?" Cter repeated the Monster King's advice.
The eyebrow was lowered again as Sund spotted movement from inside the store. He opened to door to hear what Ziki was waving to the Monster Mages about. "I've collected what I've found about Manny, sirs."
Sund nodded before turning to Cter. "Just healing magic but simpler," he answered before entering to Ziki.
Just healing.
But simpler.
As if things could be at all simple with what they've found themselves within...