"Your knuckles are more white."

It had been a quiet couple of minutes between Sarbor and Cter as the doctor layered more fresh bandages on the Monster Mage's arm. Quiet minutes for the two to digest what they had said, and what they had heard. Sarbor had regained some color to his cheeks as the layers of bandage had piled on Cter's arm. Once those were done though, and Sarbor was confident that there wouldn't be any bleeding through it, he could move his attention to the bandages on Cter's left hand.

Since she was gonna move her fingers much more than she was gonna move her arm, he'd done the hand separately to allow for more movement. With it removed he took notice of the white that had only been at the top segment of Cter's fingers.

"It's moved down." Sarbor reached for his doctor bag which he yanked towards him. The book about monster mourning tumbled out of it, bouncing open on its spine against the stone floor. "You said that you killed the fusion?" Sarbor questioned with slight hurry in his voice. "Are you sure about it?"

While his free hand rummaged inside his bag he looked over his shoulder with a stern glare. "Tell me how you killed it differently than how I did." The glare widened as his hand found what he was looking for. Cter couldn't tell exactly what it was at a glance. It was akin to a looking glass, but smaller, with a sheet of flat glass fixed a thumb's length from the widest lens. On its metallic side was fastened a pair of tweezers that Sarbor unhooked and–

"Hrm!"

"It hurt?" Sarbor paused for a moment with the pinched-off piece he snatched off Cter's middle finger. The piece he put on the flat glass, mushing it down with a circular motion of another flat glass he used to sandwich it. "So you've gotten feeling back into it." His mustache was still on edge as he observed it with his strange instrument. "That calms me a bit at least."

The way he shook his head was even stranger, as he kept his eye still at the smaller lens while the rest of his head moved. "Still shows the same characteristics as before though." With a heavy blink he he looked up back to Cter. "Still looks like a piece of the fusion. It has the same flesh-mixed-dust texture to it."

Cter looked to her middle finger. The pinch Sarbor had done wasn't visible, as if it never happened. She rubbed it against her other white-colored fingers, but it felt the same as it did before she killed the fusion again at the training area. Still though, it didn't feel like the fusion. It was sticky and viscous as the fusion was, with a string or two connecting between her rubbed-together fingers as she separated them.

"So do excuse my concern that it is still not completely dead, Cter," said Sarbor with a low hum as he scraped off the pinched piece into the flame of a lit candle which he carried over to the opened window. It bent and squirmed as if fed something truly deplorable, but returned to its soft flicker after turning the pinched piece into a puff of white smoke that Sarbor wafted out the open window. Luckily it blew away from the lingering shimmer around the training area. "Pray tell why it's dead now and not still alive on your fingers."

Cter didn't answer. "Would you consider the aura within you a part of the fusion?" she instead asked back. "Is it a part of the fusion, or a scar that the fusion inflicted upon you?" She didn't mean for it to sound as confronting as it did, but she did have to sound convincing. There was one surefire way of being convincing, one card she could put down on the table. Cter did not want to use it just yet though. She wanted to convince him without risking him never talking to her again if possible.

"What the fusion did to us, the two humans closest to it, was to make us monsters in a Cooperative Connection. Your soul did not have an aura, so it had to grow one for you in order to then use it. That's why you have one. Me," Cter said to her white fingers, "with a soul considered monster already, the fusion could connect with immediately. The carvings underneath the bandages you wrapped were only the way in. My fingers is the damage it did. The burn of the fire it thrust into my soul from its."

Sarbor's hand touched his chest, presumably where he felt his aura.

"If I were to guess, then when I confronted the fusion with Sund and the others earlier..." Cter glanced out the window, "today?" Just to make sure.

"Yes, today," Sarbor answered.

"Thanks."

"Of course."

With her eyes back on her fingers, Cter again rubbed them together. There was some slight feeling in them, but only slight. She could still not feel the shape of her nails when pushing in around them. "When I confronted the fusion I had to acknowledge that it was alive. I had to give it all of my focus, both mentally and magically, so it's no wonder that I made it worse." She scoffed a laugh that bounced her in her bed. "You've had it happen that patients have opened up their wounds and scarring due to not listening to your advice to rest and let it heal?"

Cter didn't see, but she could feel that Sarbor was nodding behind her. "There was a patient of ours who's fingers had succumbed to frostbite," he told. "Not fully, but enough to be critical. We gave him appropriate care, but he could not stay with us for long. He was the man of the house. He had to work so that his family could eat." Sarbor breathed in audibly through his nose. "I warned him that should he not rest then his condition would worsen. The frostbite could spread, or worse, pushing himself could lead to other, deadlier diseases taking a toll on him."

"As did the bells?" Cter finished for Sarbor as she looked over her shoulder to the human doctor leaning at the edge of the window, looking out with a flat expression. "It's quite a...specific story," she added. She didn't have any doubts that it was a true one. After all, with how long Sarbor had been a doctor and how Clinic Hill was known throughout not only Xoff, but all the countries, it was no wonder that he had a story that so closely paralleled to Cter's condition.

"That's why I chose it," defended Sarbor with a shrug. "I might not know how magic works and the many angles to it, but I do know humans and their angles. When presented with a right that would solve their wrong you run the risk of giving hope. If this here doctor that I've never met before solved it then it's not that bad, is it?"

Sarbor regretted giving the question such a mocking voice. "You run the risk of stirring empathy, giving the patients a belief that you'll be there even when they travel on home. Your words and medicine follow them, but you don't. You can't be there to stop them from scratching at the limits you've set for them. You're not there to follow how their condition is progressing. They're feeling better, so that means that they can do more, right? Their fingers are healing, so that means they can go back to tending the land in preparedness for spring. Surely grabbing onto old, weathered handles of dirty wood when you have fingers barely held together by the purple-colored skin can't hurt too much? And if it do, then they'll just weather it. They're feeling better because of the medicine, after all."

The human doctor shook his head.

"Another reason as to why I still considered prescribing healing magic even with my disposition against it. Healing magic don't need no continued treatment for what it can heal, and what it can't, it can't. Black and white. Yes or no,. It's said and done right then and there, and not the gradual process which turns into the norm for the patient. Norms becomes taking for granted, and taking for granted becomes doing more beyond it."

With a final sigh lamenting only being able to treat sickness and not idiocy, yet being expected to treat both, Sarbor turned away from the window with his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. "Bedside manners are important, as I said before. Giving too much is just the same as giving too little, in some cases." He nodded towards Cter's white fingers, "Just don't get magical splinters that run the risk of infecting your soul, is what I'm trying to say," then down at his chest. "You're the only one that was there at Clinic Hill with me. I don't want to be the only witness to what we saw."

"True enough," sighed Cter. "This time I had more around me, so should you want someone else's ear you can talk with Priestess Frioke later during that tea you wanted. As for my fingers," she closed and opened her fist, "I'll do my best not to get splinters in them, even if I predict that I'll be holding more than just one magical broom in my hand to clean up what the fusion means for our world."

Sarbor's sigh was tired. "Least I can do then is to continue bandaging it up. If you're gonna tear the tissue up magically then having it well-healed physically might help in reducing some of the damage." His seat back down on the wooden stool wasn't tired though, and his hands worked like they had done from the beginning on the charred bandaging. "Might be a bit late to ask," Sarbor quipped as he leaned to reach for a fresh roll of bandages after clearing up the scraps of Cter's hand, "but why did you torch your bandages, pray tell?"

Cter waited until after Sarbor had cleaned off her left hand before answering. She too lingered her eyes on the water as Sarbor rubbed ash off the white of her fingers. None of the white fell off, luckily. "I think it was just a matter of me summoning the magic closely as I did when I had a sleeve." Cter hummed bitterly at her own words for a brief moment.

"It's gonna take some getting used to. With a sleeve the magic is inherently protective of where it comes from, but I guess this is a bit...different." With a still-bitter glance, Cter ran her eyes up her left arm. "Maybe the carvings are the sleeve and everything outside of it is not the sleeve?"

"From what I'm hearing it sounds like you could have potentially immolated your own arm," Sarbor guessed while finishing up Cter's index finger. "Seems like something you ought to keep in mind going forwards. I wouldn't imagine a mage torching their own sleeve doing that out of a particularly good idea." There was a slight distance to his voice. A sort of...bored distance? As if replying out of obligation to make small talk. As if Cter was just another patient. Was that good? Maybe? Perhaps it was because Sarbor was tired and was just letting his body do things out of habit.

If so it explained why his diligence was so quick. Cter's hand had a fresh couple of bandaged layers on it within just a couple of minutes. "Can you move your fingers well? Do you want it a bit looser? Tighter?"

No, it was well and tight enough. "Feels fine to me," she let Sarbor know after a few flexes of her hand. "I can move my fingers well enough."

"Do try and minimize the movement you do though," advised Sarbor as he began to pack his doctor bag again. "The less movement the longer it'll hold tight." Once that was done he moved to stand up, but hesitated, instead turning back to Cter, blinking out of the habit that he had let take him over. His eyes became a bit-more aware, yet also a bit-more tired. "Sorry if it's so sudden, even if it's a bit...late, I guess." He steeled himself through a sharp breath through his nose. "But weren't you gonna tell me about how..." His words trailed off.

"I guess it don't really matter right now to me what you did to the fusion to kill it proper." With a flicker of his eyes towards the left hand he had just bandaged his mustache thinned slightly. "I still think that you should be aware of what exists on the tips of your fingers, Cter. Even if it is scarring that you say that it is, it can worsen with nothing but the sheer thought of it. You don't even have to exert yourself for it to be possible to happen to you."

"I can only promise to the best of my knowledge," Cter repeated, but with a bit-more weight to it. "However, nobody knows what will happen when the fusion will be revealed to the world."

"When," Sarbor repeated to himself, bending down his head with a scoff. "There's no if here at all, is there?" The wooden stool's bent legs squeaked against the stone floor as he turned on it towards the window. "No chance, however sliver, that this all can be swept underneath the carpet." He sounded scared. "Oh how I did wish that people would realize that there was too much reliance on magic. Now I fear the realization. I wanted it to be a slow realization. Never did I wish that this would happen. That Dr. Sallus would–"

He caught his mouth before he could utter anything more. The quick movement he'd still done even if he hadn't washed his hands after finishing Cter's bandage, it was so quick and reactionary. His fingers sank into his cheeks. "How are they all going to react?" he pondered through his fingers. "That a monster can be more powerful than a human?"

Conflict was visible on his bending expression. Conflict between thinking of the fusion as the fusion, and thinking of it as partly Dr. Sallus. He'd made a case for the latter, as it was the reason he was able to finally cry and mourn. Still, he spoke of the fusion like the fusion in his despair and fear for what it meant. "And that it needs a human to obtain that power." He still had thoughts that were unanswered. "A human that's deceased." Thoughts that he still were afraid of. "Fallen down."

"It is why I can't be a good patient of yours," replied Cter with a pained smile. "I need to do everything in my power to minimize the outcome of what happened." It was uncomfortable to her talking about it like she was. "This can never happen again. There can never be another fusion." About not being able to see it as her friend dying, but as an enemy that was born. The pity she felt towards it when it was so confused had never left her. The pain it had she had never forgotten. "I need to make sure." The pain it inflicted she had never forgotten. "I need to make sure it's dead in everyone's mind too."

"Don't–"

But it was too late.

Cter balled her left fist hard without thinking, tugging out a bandage-end before Sarbor could stop her. She looked at it like a child did at a toy they promised to be careful with, "Sorry," yet which they had broken instantly. She handed her hand over to Sarbor. "Guess I became caught up in the moment." Her dramatic tang having returned was another sign that she had her full soul back, at least. Silver lining while the linen lining was placed back where it belonged by Sarbor. He tightened it further, in case the moment caught up with Cter again.

It caught him as he slid the end of the bandage further into the nest of overlapped linen, summoning a giggle that had his mustache bounce. "Had it been about anything else I would have chuckled at the timing of it all, but since I literally have my soul as stake in all of this..." He let the giggle run its course, but did nothing to further its duration. "I'll laugh at it proper once you've managed to kill the fusion in everyone's mind, if that's good with you?"

It was. "Then I've something to look forward to."

The two again let a silence form between them as they retreated to mulling over their own thoughts and feelings. Cter especially took extra care and focus in how it felt to feel again. How fresh she felt compared to earlier. At the same time she felt that she needed to cry tears that she weren't able to before. To go back to Sir Gerson's office and sit down next to the empty chair which she knew wouldn't be filled ever again.

However, another part of her didn't want to go back. Not because it didn't want to mourn, but because it felt that she'd said goodbye enough already. That she would still carry the weight of Sund's fate with her, but that she had managed to adjust that weight to hang comfortably on her shoulders. It was heavy, and she would have to take it off in the future to cry over it before she could carry on with it, but that felt...okay with her.

With her soul.

It felt okay to both take a step from Sund and also to cry over him. It felt okay to...feel. To take in something new that would cloud the memory of Sund. To risk forgetting by replacing with something new. She never would, but the risk she felt okay with accepting.

And if she felt okay with that in her soul, would she feel okay with her experiment too? There was really only one way to find that out, so she closed her eyes and raised her left arm.

"No, not for you," she said to the noise of Sarbor angling forward on his stool. "It's for magic."

"Ah, right," he replied a bit sheepishly. "You wouldn't mind me making some tea then if you're gonna be doing magic now? As long as you don't ruin the bandages again, that is."

He meant the teapot Cter had in her room, surely. The white, ceramic one with the Delta Rune painted on it. She'd never really managed to build up the gunk in the bottom to give it that sour tang that Romrom's old teapot had, but with time she would manage it. "Go ahead," she let Sarbor know. "Should be some sugar nearby it if you want."

"Only for surgeries," he commented before standing up and walking over the stone floor, stopping a few steps earlier than Cter would have needed. The sound of porcelain being handled was surprisingly calming. "Although I have been trying to wean myself off it." A lighter clinking followed. "Not after all of this though."

Cter nodded to help draw a mental line so that she could focus on what she wanted to give a try.

Earlier the day, when Sund's presence worked with Cter's magic, her soul was the one that projected his barricade magic as well as her own crystal magic. With the two mixed together, perhaps she would be able to use Sund's barricade magic too? Not in a sense of stealing it from him, but to preserve it from him. That way she could make sure that it wasn't lost, and therefor that his memory wasn't lost. As it stood, he, Dr. Sallus, and the fusion had all died similarly. They had all lost their soul and mortal form, but their memories still lingered with those around them.

It was Cter's promise that she would kill the fusion in everyone's mind, and that meant making sure that Dr. Sallus' and Sund's still lived on. Through Sarbor and the other apprentices Dr. Sallus would live on, and through Cter and the Monster Mages Sund would live on.

"Thank you for letting me use you," she spoke into her arm a bit louder than normal so that it would get through her bandages. "I'll make sure that your legacy shines as bright as your soul did."

"A monster dies twice, as its life is that of two. When its soul stops shining its memory lingers on, which rests within all who it met in its first life. This begins its second, longer life which not only is bound to what its dust has been scattered upon, but also to all the souls it has touched. May its love for those it warmed in its first life carry on into its second, and may that warmth never turn cold. Rest well upon what you held dearest to you, and let your memory be as warm to us in your second life as it was in your first."

The respect in Sarbor's voice was immaculate and genuine. Cter was grateful for it.

And so was…

There!

From Cter's bandages shot up a small forest of blunt crystals akin to pressed-together boulders. The shape really didn't matter to her as much as the feeling of summoning them. With a shake she let them loose on the floor with a glass-like shatter that had Sarbor turning his head to the teapot fast enough to risk his head detaching. The shiny reflections of Cter's crystal magic drew his eyes to the pinkish mess on the floor, and then to the tensed left arm which began sprouting another forest of crystals, thinner than the ones before.

"Thank you for keeping it on the outside of your bandages."

Cter didn't answer verbally, but she did manage a nod. Her attention was very inwards, trying to catch exactly how Sund's barricade magic felt to her. She could feel it combined with her crystal magic, but she couldn't point her finger on it exactly. Even if she poked around with that finger in the shattered crystals below her she would not be able to point to it exactly. Making her crystal magic thinner and thinner, giving it less and less attention did help in one way though, as while the ratio was the same between her crystal magic and Sund's barricade magic, there was less of her crystal magic in the way of his barricade magic, which meant that–

"Some sugar in your tea too, Cter?" Sarbor quirked with a slight whistle to make Cter lose attention. She looked at him with a perplexed look, but he only pointed to the bowl of reserve water that sat next to the end of her bed. She leaned over it. "Otherwise you will pass out."

It became black for a second as Cter moved her head. All of the blood rushed away from it, and she stumbled in her lean, catching herself on the end board of her bed with both her hands. "Woah," she coughed, gripping the top of the board hard as she blinked the black away.

"You sat tensing your entire body there while not breathing," Sarbor explained to the cascading hair down Cter's cheek in hopes that it would get through to her. "I am going to go ahead and ask you not to do that again until tomorrow earliest after you've had a good, full dinner and an early sleep. You're still running on less blood than is advisable, especially should you decide to go running." As Cter managed to brush her hair away from her cheek she caught Sarbor adding two scoops of sugar into her tea. He turned to her, seeing the cold sweat that began to build on her pale face, and added another. "I'll prescribe you some of this too."

Carefully, very carefully, Cter sat back up in her bed with her right hand pressed up against her forehead that had begun pounding hard. Her eyes squinted, and her lips thinned in a pained expression.

"Remember that your body is human, please," advised Sarbor while offering Cter her tea. Before she could take it though, the doctor retreated both it and his gifting smile. A stern concern took him over, and he looked to Cter with lament in his eyes. "Remember the human body..." he repeated grimly while looking at the door. After a long pause wherein the steam from the two cups in his hands began to thin invisible, he exhaled over his mustache and turned back to Cter. He rolled his shoulder, grimacing at the visible friction, and almost spilled his tea.

"They haven't told you yet, have they?"

Cter managed to take her cup from Sarbor, if only to alleviate him of its weight. It was warm between her hands, and even warmer on her tongue. The three sugars in it worked instantly on her, snapping her mind awake, realizing what he meant.

"About how you escaped with me from Clinic Hill?"