The stew was warm, calming. Cter recognized the taste immediately. It was Idyll's cooking. No doubt about it. More importantly there was no second opinion to counter what Cter felt. No other voice that imposed itself on her. It was only her enjoying Idyll's stew in her own room and on her own bed on her own.

"I can't feel Bonny or Sund anymore..."

All alone…

"They're quiet for me too, Kurant," Cter said into the steam rising from the bowl resting between her hands. The carvings on her left arm were once again hidden underneath a layer of bandage. No magical chains to hold in the tumultuous magic underneath though. That Cter had under control since it was only her again. The carvings were still there, but it wasn't something Cter wanted to address just yet. She needed the calm that washed over her from drinking Idyll's stew. She needed a moment to try and collect herself.

She had almost lost what herself was, after all.

"Quiet how, exactly?" asked Kry with an important expression after letting Cter drink some more stew. He was reluctant to ask, yet it was important that he did. Each second that passed it faded more and more from Cter what it was that Bonny and Sund was inside of her. "Forgive me for being so quick to ask from you."

"One more," Cter asked back with her eyes closed and the half-empty bowl of stew lifted up to her mouth once again. "One more, please."

The gold-rimmed glasses slid down the remaining layer of sweat that still clung on after Kry had wiped his face with his handkerchief. "Of course," was his answer after pushing his glasses back up again. From his pocket he retrieved his handkerchief again. "You take your time, Cter."

She would. "Thanks."

There was still tension in the air from the magic Cter had cast in her overwhelming disorientation of who she really was. The faint thickness that followed Sund's barricade magic hung despite the opened window and the wind that had flowed through it since. It did not feel like Sund's magic though, but Cter's. Different from her crystal magic, but still distinctly Cter's. She had only realized who she was again for a couple of minutes yet she could still tell that it was her magic.

Without a sleeve too.

Well...without a sleeve she could take off.

Her next drink of stew was slower than the previous one to hopefully wash down the lingering thought of her left arm. Cter focused on how her body felt as she drank more of the stew. The way the warmth of it ran down her throat, and how her throat expanded help drink it. The roughness of her tongue due to the stew being a bit hotter than usual. The way the stew settled in her stomach which then spread the slightly higher warmth wider and wider inside of her.

Cter shouldn't have thought of it as a novel and new experience, but that was how it was to her. It was new, it was her first time eating. It was her first experience of eating and feeling warm stew on her tongue.

She remembered eating before. She remembered the taste of Idyll's stew. The spices, the consistency. How she had learned to appreciate eating eggs with shells on to the point that peeling them sounded weird to her. All of that she remembered as having done. All of it Cter remembered as being her.

Yet the stew in her hands was the first stew she had ever eaten. The first food she had ever eaten. It was what her body told her. It was what her soul told her. "This is the first food I've ever eaten." It was what she told her.

And it didn't sound like a lie.

"What do you mean by that?" pried Kry carefully while patiently observing Cter gently swirl the orange-dotted stew in her hands. "You've eaten Idyll's stews before."

"Do you not remember?" added Kurant after a few seconds of quiet. She was worried. Cter didn't blame her. Cter should have been worried too, yet she wasn't.

Maybe she was too tired to be worried.

"I do remember," Cter replied after another few seconds of quiet. "I do remember eating Idyll's stew. I remember you, Kurant. I remember you, Kry. I remember everyone and everything I remembered before I went to Xoff and Clinic Hill. I remember what happened at Clinic Hill too, up until..." Her brow furrowed as she struggled to pinpoint exactly when her memories stopped. Really, it wasn't a question of when it stopped, but for whom it had stopped. She remembered both through her own eyes and through the fusion's eyes the last moments before Sarbor managed through Ziki's axe through the fusion's human-shaped neck. "Up until I remember too much of what I should."

She remembered giving up.

"Do you remember what happened when you arrived here at the castle with Sarbor?" said Kry from behind his hand covering his mouth. "Do you remember...what you did?"

What she did?

"No, I don't." How Kry asked it though had Cter's brow furrowing harder. "What did I do?"

With a reluctant sigh and a troubled look out the window, Kry ran his hand over his mouth. "Please understand when I say that I'm not sure if you can know right now what you did, Cter." His voice was shaky. "We must first understand the state you are in, exactly. You said that the stew was the first thing you had ever eaten. The way you said that was genuine, yet then you say that you remember everything of who you are, including having eaten the stew before." A long exhale flowed solemnly through his nose, again disturbing his gold-rimmed glasses down the concerned folds on his nose. The icy blue of his eyes narrowed in thought. Not as icy blue as Terri's eyes, which she too remembered, but did not feel like she did. "Something has changed with you, Cter. That I'm sure you agree with too."

She did.

Where Cter and Kry differed though was that Cter felt quite melancholy about it. She knew that it was important, but it did not feel important to her. She knew why it didn't feel important to her since she had changed. If she felt that it was the first time she had ever eaten yet had memories of a lifetime of eating then clearly something was amiss. Something about her soul was amiss. Her entirety was amiss, yet she stayed emotionless about it.

For with which emotions were she supposed to feel about it? The sleepy, barely existing ones that she felt, or the ones which she remembered? Cter might have figured who of the three inside of her that was the only one supposed to be there, but who it was that she, Cter, was she was still trying to coax back to her. Who the person that all of her memories told of was.

She wanted to be that person again. She wanted to be Cter again, but she could not do it alone. She needed help. Had Idyll not been there for her…

Despite the warmth of the stew Cter still shuddered at the thought.

That Kry was being so direct as he was felt soothing to Cter. He was smart, smarter than her. He could help her, and so could Kurant. Whatever it was that had happened to her, Kurant and Kry could help her figure out what it was that had changed with her.

And what had happened to Sund and Bonny.

"Was it akin to what happened with Idyll and I, what I did?" asked Cter after some more stew to let wash warmly within her. "If I did..."

"You did," said Kurant almost immediately. Not accusatory though, but softly to dispel the question for Cter's sake. "Another reason as to why we don't feel that you can know it just yet is because we need to figure out first what it was that you did. We have asked Sarbor about it, but he needs time to digest it as well. Idyll offered to take care of him when Sir Gerson found him alone in the Royal Garden, which is why the two aren't here right now. Sir Gerson and Priestess Frioke are with King Asgore and Queen Toriel."

Cter searched for her own reflection between the chunks in her stew, but all that she saw was cloudy. The oil hadn't had time to separate and make a smooth surface for her to reflect herself in, neither in the stew or in her soul. "Idyll's voice was the first thing I remember from here. Her voice was what helped me remember what it was that Cter was supposed to see out the window."

Kry picked up on the third person immediately "Do you not feel comfortable calling yourself Cter?" he posed as carefully as he could, but it was clear that it had struck something with him.

"Sorry." Cter didn't mean to. "I meant it in a way that Idyll's voice was the first thing that I heard alone, and not with..." A deep dent was sighed hard into the stew, revealing more chunks underneath the cloudy surface. "Not with them."

Kurant and Kry shared a solemn look between each other before they eventually had to face what Cter meant exactly by that.

"So, the two are gone from you, Cter?"

She nodded. "It's only me right now. They've both gone quiet. I can't feel them inside my aura. I can't feel them in my soul. I can't feel them, period."

Kurant's hand gripped over her mouth as her weak expression melted into defeat. "No..." She looked to Kry again, who was gripping his wrists hard behind his back to try and keep a glint of resolve and composure. "They're gone..."

The weight of it all pushed Kry's otherwise-solid shoulders down into the same defeat that painted Kurant's face and aura. His stoic demeanor was gone, replaced by building grief. "I can't imagine..." he tried to comfort, but how could he if he was further gone than the one he tried to comfort. "I can't imagine their fate." Eventually it became too much for him, and he took off his glasses with the last composure he had left before sinking down on the desk chair behind him with his sleeved hand gripping over his eyes. A restrained sob turned angry midway through, as if he was chastising himself for failing to be strong for the others.

Kurant, who's arms reached out for Kry as he sat down, retreated slowly towards the window behind her where she sat down at a standing angle onto the windowsill. Her arms crossed over her chest like a hug, and she leaned down her head to veil herself inside her long hair. Her sobs were quieter than Kry's, yet they shook her harder. Each raspy inhale had her hair whipping with sorrow. "Sund..." dripped like her tears down onto the stone floor where they shattered just as Cter's crystal shards had. "Singe my soul… Sund..."

Had Cter had enough energy she would have cried too with her colleagues. Had she been capable of being wrought with grief in the shared moment she would have let her aura join in the sorrow that Kry and Kurant let radiate without restrain. She wanted to. She wanted to so much that her soul hurt trying to force out the emotion.

But nothing came.

Cter only sat there as her colleagues tried to cope, yet failed. Just sat there on the edge of her bed drinking more stew in hopes that she would have enough energy to cry.

But nothing came.

Eventually her stew ran out, with only one or two pieces of chopped broccoli in the bowl when Cter sat it aside on the night stand. Her hand moved around the spot where she had grabbed at out of habit before. She knew why she did though, compared to earlier. Something was supposed to be there. Something important to her. "My brooch." Something that was missing. "My hair brooch isn't here." Same with her sleeve too. "Did Frioke take it along with my sleeve?" She asked as if she was completely unaware to the weeping her friends had succumbed to.

In a way she was…

"D-Do you...remember?" coughed Kry with great effort after half a minute of collecting himself to ask. His hand was still gripping hard across his eyes. Harder, even. "Do you r-remember that Frioke took them?"

Cter shook her head, ending at the vacant spot on her night stand. "No, I don't. I guessed. It seemed the most probable to me that Frioke would take my brooch and my sleeve to study them. She did it before with Cter's...my sleeve when you brought Idyll and I here." A loose lock fell down Cter's face, bouncing playfully, as if to to mock her of the fact. With an annoyed motion she swept it behind her ear, humming in the fact that annoyance was the next emotion that she had gotten back. "I don't know if she should examine my sleeve though, to be honest. I think that–"

"Sund. Is. Dead. Sund is dead, and you're just–"

"K-Kurant," Kry coughed with his hand thrown away from his eyes towards her. His eyes had gone from an icy blue to a chafed red, pleading with Kurant who's hair hadn't settled from whipping her head towards Cter. "Don't."

It had Kurant pausing, but it was clear that it wasn't what she wanted. "I..." she forced through her gritted teeth. "I'm so..." Her aura wanted to explode with anger while it at the same time pulled itself as far in as possible to try and restrain itself. She knew she shouldn't be angry at Cter. She knew that she shouldn't be angry at her friend. "I just..."

"I know," said Cter while not moving. "I want to cry with you, Kurant. I want to be sad. I want to choke on my tears over the fact that Sund is...dead…" Again she tried to force out something. Anything! A sob, a tear, an anything! Even if it was her eyes narrowing it would have been enough.

But nothing came.

"I can't cry, Kurant," Cter uttered quietly while looking into a horizon of her own making. "I can't be sad. I don't… I don't know how to be sad. I remember what it is. I know that it is what you two are feeling now, but I just...can't. It's not within me. It has to come back to me, somehow." With a blink she returned to where she was, inside her own room with her two Monster Mage colleagues holding back their grieving to listen to her. "Kurant," Cter begged from the bottom of her soul. "Please cry. Please cry for Sund. If you have to yell at me and be angry with me then that's fi–"

"No," refuted Kurant with a wide slash in the air between her and Cter. Her hair which had hidden her face was thrown aside in the wide motion, revealing the flushed cheeks blazing on the fair skin turned a deep gradient of pink. "No, it's not fine!" Her breaths failed her twice before she could get through her words through her choked throat. "I shouldn't be angry with you, Cter! You've suffered too! Look at you! Look at your aura, your arm, your..." She wanted to say one more, but she couldn't. Queen Toriel in her sleeve stopped her. It was too much.

Her knees loosened, and she slid down the wall underneath the window. Her brace squeaked and tensed from her quick descent down the rough stone wall, her mantle folding over her head as she hit the floor hard. Before she had time to collapse her head between her healthy knee and her brace, her mantle swept over her, stopping just short of hiding the crack in the bolt that was holding together her brace's side.

"Cry for me, because I can't," Cter could finally finish saying to her slumped colleague who could not be strong no more. Kurant's wails were louder than her aura was, but neither Kry nor Cter said anything about it. They envied her for being able to cry as much as she did, Cter far more than Kry did.

For eventually he succumbed too, and fell into both his hands with hard quells of mourning spat clumsily from his uncomfortable grimace. He had not cried in a long time, and had forgotten how. It hurt Cter. It hurt her seeing his shoulders implode and his voice turn so harsh that only complete woe could do.

It hurt her because she had no memory of Kry crying. She didn't remember him showing any grief ever before. No despair, no mourning, no hurt. It was a new experience for her, both for the Cter that was before Clinic Hill and Cter that was after Clinic Hill. It was something that she didn't want as new. She didn't want to experience it as someone incomplete. She hated it! She hated that she could not share with her remaining colleagues!

So! Why! Couldn't! She! Also! Cry!

"Cter..."

She wanted to!

"No...Cter..."

She wanted to cry with them!

"Cter, stop!"

She wanted to fall down with overwhelming grief and to–

"Cter!"

Thick tears crashed against the bandages around Cter's left wrist, soaking them with salty tears that burned on the exposed flesh inside her carvings underneath the wettened cloth. She looked down to where Kurant was holding desperately, on her left hand that had grasped tightly on her torso.

"You-" Kurant quickly swallowed her interrupting sob. "You're bleeding."

Cter's nails had scraped deep into her torso, enough to draw blood. She'd not felt it as her fingertips were numb, as was her torso too, apparently. All that she really felt were the warm, sanguine drops pooling at the base of her nails. Like a fork out a steak she retreated her left hand's nails from her torso, rubbing them together, but not feeling anything.

Not feeling…

Anything…

Kurant collapsed in a desperate embrace, wrapping her arms around Cter with all of her weight thrown onto her friend. "Cter," she cried into the nightgown, staining it. "What's happened to you, Cter?" Her arms tightened as much as they could, but it wasn't enough. "Please come back." She couldn't get to her friend. "I don't want to lose you too!" She couldn't feel her aura. "I don't want you to die as well."

Cter hugged back because that was how she remembered her doing in similar cases. She didn't feel anything by it though. She just felt tired. She had just finished her bowl of stew and yet she felt tired.

Or perhaps she was too tired to even feel tired before? That certainly wasn't off the table. If she just came to be in her awareness she wouldn't have known if she was tired prior to becoming alone again?

…

Yeah, she was extremely tired.

"I want to sleep a bit," Cter stated while looking behind her to her pillow. "Can I do that?" It wasn't a question of if she could do that, but more a question whether or not Kurant or Kry would allow her to. "I think it's good tired though," she added to help convince. "I didn't feel tired before, but now I do. My eyes feel heavy."

Kurant's tight squeeze indicated that she wasn't completely convinced. "Promise me that it is good tired. Are you sure that it is? Completely sure that it is good tired?" With a quick lean back she met Cter's eyes for a confrontational moment before averting away. Cter saw that Kurant held her eyes open as wide as she could before averting away. "If you promise me, then I want to wait outside while you sleep, please."

"Kurant, you don't have to–"

"I do, Kry!" she snapped back before regretting it. Not just due to the pain it brought her screaming so loud, but also that she again was taking her grief out on her colleagues. "I'm… I need to. I'm still afraid. You're still not back, Cter. You're still not you yet. I want to make sure that you don't disappear further away. Please. Please let me keep watch outside."

Cter looked to Kry. She wasn't in a position to make that decision, so it was up to Kry to make it. He looked Cter hard and long in the eyes, waiting, observing, feeling. He didn't blink for over a minute, and neither did Cter. He was studying, and she had to give him as much time as he needed. After the long minute he put his balled hands up to his forehead, sighing hard when they made contact. "I'll be with Sir Gerson and Frioke in the meanwhile." His interlocked hands went from his forehead to underneath his chin. "I'll see to the Fech siblings to while I'm at it," he directed over to Cter. "Sleep well, would you?"

He was worried as he stood up and headed towards the door leading towards the tower staircase. With a heavy hand he held onto the handle for a good few seconds before opening it up only to spend more seconds standing in the door frame with slow, lucid breaths. His robust frame was in shambles, hanging loosely rather than standing proud. Finally he shook his head, loosening a couple of tears, and headed down the staircase with heavy steps.

"I'll check in on you periodically," said Kurant after waiting for Kry's steps to quiet down. She stood up with her hands wiping her face as best as she could. "I'll be quiet though."

"Yeah."

"You just try and rest, okay?"

"Yeah."

The short and direct answers had Kurant hesitant to leave, but anything more Cter could not get out. She wished she could, but she couldn't.

"Anything you want me to..."

"No."

A heavy silence fell between the two until Kurant managed to swallow enough of her worries to leave Cter alone. She too paused in the door frame, wanting to look back, but managed to suppress that feeling enough to be able to leave the room and close the door behind her. She was looking through the door though from outside, letting her aura wash into the room again to keep an eye out like she said she would.

Cter's bed had become cold in the meanwhile after she had woken up from it. She rearranged the pillows and turned the cover so that she would not sleep on the same patch as she had done while she was many.

Just felt right for her to do so.

While she did fall asleep immediately, she did not feel that she had gotten any rest as the slashing angle of the setting sun swept over her face. She sat up and looked around, but nothing had really changed. The walls were still the same walls. The nightstand was still only occupied with the bowl, and the desk with the mirror was still…

The mirror…

It was flipped back.

Was it Kurant's doing? Must have been, right?

But why? Why did she do it?

Cter stood up from her bed and walked over to the desk. As she passed the window, the bright of the setting sun blinded her for a moment, and when she got to the mirror, the colors of the room had changed slightly. Same with her eyes too. They weren't their deep forest-green, but a more lighter meadow-green instead.

Stranger still, they stayed that lighter green even as the room around her in the mirror changed back to its normal color.

Her eyes…

"My eyes..."

They had changed.

The windows to her soul had changed.

Which meant that…

That her soul had changed. What had happened to Idyll had happened to her too. Cter's soul that looked in the mirror was not the same one that had traveled to Clinic Hill. It was not the same one that had lived with Cter all of her life.

It wasn't the same one that Cter had cried with.

Cter turned her new windows to the old one of stone that displayed the last rays of deep orange that bathed the room. She walked up to it, and folded her arms on the sill. With a deep inhale she took in the faint smell of smoke and the fainter smell of lake air.

It was new to her soul.

"You helped Idyll cry before," Cter told it as a gust brushed through her loose hair. "Now please help me."

The wind carried on through the window, whining loudly through the slight slit underneath the door and down the long, hollow staircase. It carried with it the familiar sound of Jarasevo settling in for the end of the day. It carried with it the sound of the change of the Royal Guard. The quiet whiff of warm tar from far below, and the loud whiff of the Royal Kitchen chimney as the wind shifted to the side.

It also carried with it a tiny droplet that it ripped away from Cter's closed eyes. She didn't see it as it disappeared like a child having managed to steal a cookie from the cookie jar.

She didn't need to see it though.

"Thank you."

Because she had many, many more waiting to take its place.