"Hi."

Interrupted from running the tips of her bent fingers against the flat of her palm, Cter looked up from where she sat on the edge of her bed to the careful wave that her friend gave her.

"Hi," Cter replied back with a distant tone. While she was glad to see Idyll she had also dreaded her best friend bringing up Cter's breakfast to her. During the night as Cter recalled the debriefing of the situation at Clinic Hill she had found a lot of...similarities to another prior event in her life. Even more so than before. Having heard herself talk about Clinic Hill added and added onto the similarities, leaving her unable to get good sleep since she knew that she had to talk to Idyll about it the following morning.

And once that following morning arrived as a tray carefully arranged with food and flowers, Cter averted away, instead opting to look out the window. She was gonna have to talk with Idyll sooner or later, but the more later she could make it, the better.

Even if it was for just a few seconds.

"These tulips bloom so nicely this time of year, don't they?" Idyll said as she stepped inside the room. She hit her elbow on the door, causing it to creek a bit. "I've heard that they bloom earlier in Hjearta, but with the climate here being more temperate I think they spend the longer time to bloom collecting more color to them. The more they stay as bulbs the more they are tended to by King Asgore too, right? Wouldn't surprise me if that was the case." The tray of food she placed on the study desk before arranging the picked flowers in a nearby vase that she filled with some of the water she had brought with. "They'll get some good sunlight here from your...window."

The bright hair sent hundreds of thin stripes of reflected light shooting across the stone wall and ceiling as Idyll sighed heavy enough to have her hair tumble down her feathered-covered cheek. "I don't know if I should tell you this, Cter, but I was scared." Idyll tilted her featherless cheek towards her friend. "And not in the way that was obvious to everyone," she tried to chuckle out, but failed. Before her faux smile even had formed her expression turned more grim and serious. "The way your aura felt to me, and the angry magic that you produced..."

She rubbed one of the tulips' petals between two of her fingers. The roughness of her blue scales had a petal disintegrating after just a couple rubs. "It was the first time I ever saw your magic in a scared and angry light. I wasn't scared of what had happened to you, Cter."

"Idyll–"

"I was scared of who you were, Cter," Idyll forced through Cter's interruption. "I was afraid of the friend I had always trusted and–"

The petal and its tulip ignited to ash which stained the water in the vase, turning it dark-gray. Idyll's hand, swirled in ice magic to compensate for the emotional fire that had burst from her, reached out for the ash floating in the vase, but retreated back, clutching at her chest, as the surface of the water began to solidify.

"I felt the same fear and distrust I had towards you when I first woke up after I'd invited you into my soul." The monster could only hold eye contact with her friend for a moment before she turned away to look out the window too, her feathered side facing Cter as darkly ashen as the remains of the tulip floating in the vase.

Her bright hair swayed back and forth over her dark cheek from the curious gusts of winds from outside. "That same...suspicion and alarm that a human wielding magic was about to overwhelm me as a monster. The unease of a human so-much-more powerful than I using magic, and that she was just a moment away from killing me because she did not understand what she was doing!"

The bright hair whipped away from the dark feathers, ripping off a couple from the scowling cheek as Idyll threw her right arm in a vicious arc in front of her, summoning a core of ice magic shattered with uneven pricks of frost steaming like chimneys from the violent layer of fire magic roaring wildly around it. It left a trail of hot shimmer dotted with convulsing shards of ice behind its emotion-filled speed through the window and out towards Jarasevo.

Its shatter brought commotion from far below, most likely a handful of Royal Guards being woken from their sleepy post.

"I'm angry at myself for being scared like that again," cursed Idyll with a clenched growl that bared her uneven teeth in the middle of her raven feathers. Cold residue from her thrown magic trickled in with another gust through the window. "You needed me there, Cter, and I could have done more. You shouldn't have been forced to beg me for help." The clenching became too weak to keep her teeth together. "I should have pushed forward and embraced you the moment I felt that something was wrong! I hate that I hesitated! I hate that I was scared! I hate that I..."

A long, hurt sigh blew back outside the magical residue that had sneaked in.

"I hate that I'm putting this on you too, Cter." A trembling set of claws snapped over to the awaiting tray of eggs, breads, tea, fruit, and fried ham. "Go up to you, give you your breakfast, then be by your side if you needed me for anything, big or small. That's what I kept telling myself from the kitchen to the Royal Garden and then to your tower. Hell, you probably even heard my echo up your staircase."

Cter didn't.

"But then...I began to talk with you, and..." The blue hands gesticulated wildly, but to no avail. Idyll did not find the words she needed. It furthered her disappointment in herself. "Maybe it's good?" she tried to salvage, ending her gesticulation in a shrug that helped her reach for the straws she was grabbing at. "Maybe it's because that I think of you as Cter again that I want to share my burdens with you? That if I'm talking to you like nothing has happened then nothing has...happened..."

Tea spilled into the tray as Idyll leaned back heavily onto the desk with the mirror on it. Her hand gripped at the base of her nose like how a human would, but with her muzzle it was more a grip rather than a pinch.

"Was this how you felt after my soul had changed, Cter?"

It was both a question and an apology of sorts with how filled with heartache it was, although how exactly neither Cter or Idyll knew. They let the question hang in the gusting air between them, not moving in the slightest despite the wind picking up from the warming from the morning sun. Eventually, without a word, Idyll brought over the tray of breakfast to Cter for her to eat. Then she returned to the same melancholy lean that she had while her friend ate in silence. The cracking of the eggshells and the clinking of silverware against porcelain went on for a while as Cter prolonged the latter. From outside there trickled in slight commotion from Jarasevo waking up and greeting the new morning.

It was nice.

It was the first real calm Cter had felt ever since…

It was less nicer, suddenly.

Still nice, but with Cter reminding herself of the swollen caveat that hung over her and everyone in the castle like a void-black cloud it became something nice with a condition.

A condition that she had to acknowledge sooner.

Because she had run out of the latter.

"It did," Cter answered as she moved the vase from the tray over to the nightstand. As she did, Idyll went to take the tray from her. "Thanks." Cter hadn't finished her tea, so the Delta-Rune-painted cup she kept. It was nestled hot inside her palms, although not at her left hand's fingertips. There the warmth moved through the tips without sensation, stopping only at the inside of her nails. "I questioned for a long time if you were the same monster as you were before. You talked, acted, laughed, and cooked the same as you did before, but I knew that a change had happened. I saw that despite your cooking being the same, you used fire and ice magic to prepare it. That you didn't before. That was different, and it was your magic that was different. Like a jester monster suddenly walking in with a different color to his robe but with seemingly only you noticing that he has changed color."

Idyll listened.

Hard.

Even as Cter paused for more tea her monster friend kept the same attentive furrow and half-nod to her head as she processed with all her attention what Cter was saying, taking it to heart.

And to soul.

Her changed soul since a long time before, trying to understand the one that had changed recently.

"You certainly wore a different one yourself when you came out of that carriage with Sarbor," concluded Idyll low towards the floor. "Still wearing a different one, but less...different. I don't know, it's strange trying to think of it like this. How different you feel, but how similar you are still."

Had the conversation taken place after the faithful night that brought the two to the castle the roles would have been exactly mirrored. Cter wasn't surprised by the fact that Idyll and hers role were reversed, but by the sheer precision of it. How Idyll's words could have been hers, and vice versa.

"Cter?"

The Monster Mage's coughed exhale echoed strangely against the stone walls of her room. It sounded happy, the strangest emotion in that moment. Even so, it was genuine. Genuinely happy, in such a sudden change that it had Idyll worried, leaning back before leaning forwards.

"If you don't want to continue talking then that's fine," she reminded to her best friend. "If you're feeling tired then you should sleep some more. I'll be back with lunch later."

"No," Cter said with a light breath out. "No, stay, Idyll. I'm not tired." She looked up from her hunched head with a smile pushing aside the wet streams down her flush cheeks. "I'm happy. I'm happy that you're feeling this way, Idyll." She stroked long across her eyes with her naked right arm. "You're feeling what I felt following when your soul changed, and look how you managed it. You made it your own, you became you again with it." Then she took up her left arm, cradling it against her chest. "And if you managed, then so can I. No offense."

Idyll wasn't really on the same page after Cter's rapid leafing of it. Mostly she was hesitant to say anything to blow away the small sliver lining her friend had grasped at so desperately. The more the prospect simmered between the two though the more it felt strangely...correct?

"Right?" Cter added with a peak in her voice. "We done it once, you and I, so we know what to do, don't we? If we're there for the other the same as we were back then we can get through this. Together." Cter was perhaps leaning on it a bit too heavily than she should have, but who would have blamed her in her situation?

It was the one straw she had managed to grasp, the one route she could believe in to move forwards. It wasn't gonna be easy. Hell, even with all the exact words that could have been her own, the situation wasn't the same. It wasn't Idyll's fault what had happened at Clinic Hill.

What was the same though were that one of the two friends' souls had changed, and that the other wanted to act like nothing had happened for the sake of the one who had changed, but couldn't. They were too good friends for either one to act like nothing had happened.

However though, that they had already done once. What was in the future was behind them too. They could use that. They could move from that!

Cter could move from that!

"Idyll..." the Monster Mage cried with her arms reaching out for her friend. "I can..."

The monster enveloped her pleading friend with a care so deep and so warm, embracing the brittle soul with her caring one just as tightly and securely as her arms did Cter's body. The rough scales were like silk as the two nestled their necks around the others, letting their hair blend in a way that would not come loose without pain. They didn't pay it not mind though. It were only the two in the moment.

"I can overcome this," Cter let spring from her mouth tensed with emotion. She wanted to cry that which she was unable to before, but also savor the feeling of finding light again. Of coming to realize that she had her friends with her, even if one was gone. Even if it tore at her soul and heart that Sund was gone, Cter was still alive. She could not let herself fall into the void! That Sund would never have accepted! She had to find a way to come back to being herself, even if she was changed! "I can overcome this!"

Just as her friend had.

"I can overcome this with you, Idyll!"

The heaviest tears fell from Idyll though. The biggest relief radiating from the two's hugging auras was from her. "I thought I'd lost you," her quivering voice spoke without any strength in it. "That I'd never get to talk with you again. Never be able to hug you again or cook you food again. Never–"

Another chuckled scoff interrupted the monster. "You still sound just how I did." Cter moved her left hand up to Idyll's shoulder so that she could grip tighter without using her fingertips. She was not gonna let anything interrupt her moment with her friend, not even the reason the moment happened! "And I'll promise you like you did to me that it'll be well again. That I'll be fine despite what's happened to me. I promise you that I'll keep that promise just as how you kept yours. I–"

"And you sound just like me, Cter," replied Idyll with an identicaly chuckled scoff. "Are you gonna suggest that we make new greeting magic too?" She did not commit to the proposition fully, as there was still some fear about the stability of her friend lingering. "It helped me come to terms with my new magic, so it outta help you too, right?" She begged with all her soul and aura that it sounded right to Cter.

"I'll...try, Idyll."

"No," she refuted. "You'll do."

"Yes." And that was why Cter felt that there was a chance for her. "I'll do." For like hell if Idyll would let her friend disappear from her. "I'll do it for you, Idyll."

"You'll do it for you firstly, Cter," Idyll refuted again with just as much care and warmth. "This is for you, as it was for me the last time."

Cter still considered herself lucky. Despite the grief that tore at her, and the soul inside of her that didn't yet feel as her own, she had hope.

Despite everything, she was still her.

Because she had the ones around her that wanted her to be her. Cter reflected herself in her friends, and thus they reflected back at her. As in the mirror on her desk, Cter's reflection had changed, but underneath the change she still existed. Underneath the change she reached up for help to be pulled back up above the change.

"We see the same view outside the window, Idyll."

And they all grabbed her hand to help.

"You can't imagine how relief that brings me, Cter. I may not be able to imagine the pain that's been inflicted within you, but I'm gonna continue to continue cooking you food until you can overcome it. I won't call it a promise, for those you can break. It's just something I will do. Something I will do with all of my soul."

With the longest arm being from Idyll.

"Thank you."

Reaching deeper than any other could.

"Sarbor will be here in a bit," said Idyll after detaching from the embrace so that she could clean away the strands of hair that had begun clinging to her wet eyes. She detached slowly, with one hand straightening her hair stuck inside Cter's. "To check up on you and your...arm." After freeing herself, Idyll looked at the door she had accidentally left slightly ajar. "Maybe he's just waiting for us." Her whisper was meant for just herself, but Cter heard it too. "Do you want me to stay here until he gets here?"

Cter nodded. "I want that, please." Not to talk anymore. That wasn't necessary at all, the two friends had already said what needed to be said. Cter felt hope, but it wasn't a good idea to push that hope. It had to grow on its own, slowly if it needed. What was important was that a seed had been planted. It had been watered plenty with the tears the two friends had shared. Sunlight was next.

Sunlight that playfully stretched itself across the landscape of Jarasevo and Monster Country further beyond outside the window. The hills, lakes, rivers, farms, and the many different rooftops all seemed to glitter in the morning rays.

If there was anything that Cter didn't mind feeling like it was the first time she had seen it…

"You're seeing the same thing I'm seeing out the window," whisked Idyll with a melting sigh. "I can tell, Cter." Her mouth grimaced into a crying smile. "I can tell." Just so relieved. "I can tell in your aura." So relieved that her friend was back. "Together, Cter."

"Together, Idyll."

An amused, faint conversation from the Royal Guards posted at the gate far below sprung a short laugh before an even shorter reprimand stopped it dead. Cter did not recognize either who laughed or who it was that reprimanded due to the wind.

She smiled to herself that she accepted that explanation.

After a handful of minutes another faint conversation sprung another laugh which played out its entire course for the better part of another minute. It was pleasant to listen to. The carefree levity between two good friends. Cter angled her eyes over to Idyll who met them with a determined nod.

They would laugh like that again.

Together.

A long while passed, with the angle of the sun through the window changing noticeably before the slightly ajar door was knocked on. "Ebott's shado–" came half a swear as a pair of human hands fumbled for the handle that swung away from the knock, revealing the mustache-clad human straightening himself and his felt suit. "Good morning, Cter," he greeted to the Monster Mage with his mustache bouncing its last. "Idyll," he greeted to his sister who smiled back towards his still mustache. "If I'm here at a bad time I can return later. You seem to have gotten some color back to you Cter. It's good to see that."

His comment was genuine, tugging upwards underneath his mustache.

"It's good to see you too," replied Cter, also genuinely. "How are you...doing, Sarbor?" There wasn't really another way to ask him rather than direct. Had Cter danced around the fact she would have been throwing away what she had just found with Idyll's help.

"I'm doing as well as I could," the human replied with a glance over to his monster sister. It was a glance that wanted to be happy, but couldn't muster enough of it. "Priestess Frioke, Sir Gerson, Kry, and Kurant have made sure that I'm being treated as a Royal Guest. I know a part of it is due to what I've...seen," the human blinked away a surging memory which caused him to twitch, "but there is hospitality within as well."

The air was both tense and partly relaxed at the same time in the castle tower room. All three in it knew that there was a veil that hid what Sarbor really wanted to say, yet since they all knew, they could all accept it. Even if it only was making vapid small talk in the shadow of the looming past that still affected the present, huddling around the small island of light in the shadow provided some solid ground to stand on.

Solid ground that supported Idyll's feet as she stood up. "I'll see you again at lunch, Cter," the Monster Chef said as if it was any other day as she picked up the tray she had brought with. She stopped at her human brother holding up the door for her to wrap an arm around his neck and to nestle her muzzle into it like she had done with Cter. He returned the hug lovingly. "You too, Sarbor." The two held their hug for a long minute before Idyll felt comfortable enough to let her brother go.

With a final turn over her shoulder as she exited the room, Idyll smiled through her raven feathers before heading down the staircase.

Sarbor closed the door behind his little sister, making doubly sure that it was properly closed with no ajar present, slightly or otherwise. The extra effort was curious to Cter, who followed the human doctor as he made his way to the chair that his monster sister had sat in just a moment before. His sitting down was uncomfortable to him, and he winced with a squirm that caused his breathing to turn sharp.

"Your sister's warmth?" Cter pried. After all, it had been a long while since the two had met. She didn't know if they had found the time to reconcile, but with the longing way the two hugged it didn't seem like that was the case.

"No," Sarbor answered.

But that wasn't correct.

Not entirely.

He did feel something.

And furthermore, Cter felt something too.

She felt that he felt.

"It's something else."

Something that he hadn't before!