Hard, quick blinks followed the Fourth Monster Mage as she sat up in her bed following commotion from the end of her room. She lifted her left hand over her eyes, but the white of her bandages didn't really do a lot to help shield her eyes from the morning brightness she tried to see through.
Even less to see who it was that was responsible for the commotion.
Which let her know exactly who it was.
"Ms. Shuey?" Cter asked sleepily to the end of her room where the faint outline of the ghost monster was rearranging some books on a shelf where Cter wasn't storing any books prior. Even while squinting, it was still only the ghost's outline Cter was able to actually see. The white morning sunlight reflecting against white walls didn't do a whole lot to help see the transparent white of the monster taking the liberty to impart her own organization to Cter's books.
"Ah!" the ghost reacted with an uppity quip to her hollow, echo-full voice as she finished sliding in the last of Cter's books on Hjearta history which she hadn't gotten to reading quite yet. "How nice of you to join us in the land of being awake, Cter." There was a certain something to her voice that the Monster Mage couldn't quite put her sleepy finger on. "Even if it is a ways into the day already."
Ah, there it was.
"I have washed your robe as per your specifications," explained Fang as she hovered, still hard to see, across the room with her body casting the tiniest of bendy shimmers against the white wall, which was how Cter managed to follow her hovering to the wardrobe at the other corner of the Monster Mage study. "You should find that it has a gentler softness to it as I made sure that we used Xoff techniques primarily on top of our normal, magical techniques when it comes to washing clothes."
"Mm..." Cter nodded, half-listening as she rubbed the tired from her eyes. Again her dinner with Idyll had ended with the two almost falling asleep on the roof. The colder, early autumn night though had them not getting as close to falling asleep on the roof as their more summery dinners had earlier. "Xoff."
Her saying the human country's name had her eyes shooting wide open and her heart racing a startled inhale through her nose, making her wide awake.
"Yes, I do think it smells quite refreshing as well," agreed Fang wrongly as she retrieved the green Xoffian robe from the wardrobe. "Had we not been in a shortage of those salty sea stones used in Xoff to wash I would have had it rotated into the washing of the Monster Royals' robes on a more regular basis." She folded it over a ghostly limb and floated silently over to Cter in her bed. As the ghost monster passed by the opened window the green robe tinted her a pleasant emerald green for a few seconds, as well as her immediate surrounding. "Would you mind wearing it to make sure that it hasn't shrunk in the process?"
Cter didn't.
However, she would rather do it alone if she had the option to.
With Fang Shuey however it was a coin toss whether or not that was even possible. Cter had to at least try though. "You wouldn't mind me trying it on my own?" she asked, hoping that the message would come through with her not having gotten up from her bed or from underneath her duvet.
"How would I then see if it fits you or not?" Mrs. Shuey replied without pause and with a transparent blink.
Cter blinked back, if only because she didn't really have anything in response to that. "I..." she sighed before accepting that she had to. "I guess so." She spent another few seconds in her bed though to make sure that the feeling had simmered down before she scooted over to the edge of her bed. With her right hand tucking down on her nightgown she stood up. Fang Shuey hung the green robe over the white bandages and nodded.
Before she wore it Cter held it before her to feel on it.
She agreed with Fang about how it felt softer than before. There was no dust residue left on it either as she let some magic run through its fabrics. There was still some magic residue left in it though from how Fang Shuey usually washed with the help of conjured brushes and magical bubbles in the water to help agitate the washing powder used. Since she talked about Xoffian sea rocks maybe she had to use even stronger bubbles to get that working? Could be why the fabric felt softer since it had been beaten more by the bubbles?
Or something like that.
"Allow me."
Cold, breathy limbs were placed gingerly on Cter's shoulder, waking her enough to spring out of her bed up on her toes. She turned with wide eyes to the ghostly aide. "You've already done enough," Cter blurted with a quick nod. "I can do on my own."
Fang Shuey looked as if she doubted that.
Or it could have been the way the brown of the reorganized bookshelf looked through her.
In either case, the ghost aide cocked her lower half out to the side, waiting impatiently. "I still have more to do, potentially." She flipped at Cter's green robe with magic to remind the Monster Mage. "Pray, please, Monster Mage."
She would, but she had to do just one thing before that.
From inside her white bandages began a glow of darkly pink, first separately at the spots where her magical carvings were, but then connected between them, forming a pattern both spiraling and angular at the same time. She inhaled gently through her nose, then straightened her bandaged arm at an angle before her. The dark pink glow turned whiter, blending in with the tightly wrapped bandages. Then from her hand extended a white, hazy line that touched the floor and reached a head or so more above her.
Cter stretched the line wider in a half circle in front of her, forming it into a pattern not unlike that of those wooden trellis in the Royal Garden for ivy to climb up on. White, square patterns formed with the stretched barricade magic, hiding the Monster Mage from view behind a magical framework of glowing squares.
Albeit poorly.
However though, she wasn't done.
Like moss, crystal magic began to grow on the framework, expanding to fill in the hollow squares with colorful crystals that both gave the Monster Mage study a brilliant luster as the morning light danced with the shifting, chiming growth of the magic. To boot, Cter had the crystals form while twisting slightly, distorting the view of her room from inside her crystal arc.
And distorting the view of her from outside her crystal arc.
Giving her enough privacy that she could undress without any worry of any eyes looking at her, be they corporeal or not. With a gleeful whistle she tossed her robe up onto the arc like a towel before she grabbed at the neck of her nightgown and pulled it over her head and–
"I can just go through it, you know."
From within the half-undressed nightgown, Cter stewed a scowl. Half from her completely forgetting about it, and half from how Fang Shuey didn't express her quip in the form of a question.
"You've begun acting more human since you arrived back from Xoff, Monster Mage," the ghost aide commented as she retreated out from the crystal arc, her voice muffling her hollow echo halfway through. "While it is not my place to pry from a high-rank of the Royal Guard, it is my place to make sure that you're provided what the castle offers, and that you offer to the Castle what it is you can offer." There was a hefty amount of pride within the ghost's voice. In a way it looked like she became more...solid as she stated her purpose? Cter could only glimpse at the aide through her purposely distorted crystal magic in-between the short time frame from her tossing up her nightgown like a second towel on top of the crystal arc and retrieving her first green, Xoffian towel, so...
"And the castle gives bountiful offerings for both humans and monsters, as I'm sure you're well aware of." Fang Shuey paused to hear the sound of her own words. "The Cooperative Connection is exemplified by the hospitality given to our guests the same as we give to those that live within these marbled and magical walls."
Oh well, the more the aide occupied herself with the pride of her work the less she was looking at Cter.
"It matters naught the distance traveled, only the destination. Here in Jarasevo Castle all are welcome underneath the warm and soft generosity of King Asgore and Queen Toriel!" The honorably declared bellow played against the crystal arc like tapped percussion, summoning second voices that chimed like song. The ghost aide let it fade accompanied with a pleased hum before she approached the crystal arc once more. "Now, how does the– Ow!"
The pearly chime caused by the ghost monster colliding with the crystal magic was loud.
And also a bit incongruous.
Strangely, the ghost aide peeked over the top of the crystal arc rather than phasing through it. A splotched dent was visible on her sparse-featured face, with the shading of the dent looking like an inverted nose. "How does the robe feel on you, Monster Mage?" Mrs. Shuey repeated in full with her curly, transparent curls sliding off the top of the crystal arc as she tilted her head curiously at the Monster Mage head plopping out of the emerald-green neck hole.
If Cter was gonna be completely honest it…
She looked down, her verted-nose also hurting, albeit from the shrunken neck hole rather than any collision with conjured crystal magic. "It's a bit more..." It tightened at her shoulders as she lifted up her arms. "It's a bit more form-fitting," she had to inform while plucking at the robe just below the tighter neck hole so that it wouldn't be too form-fitting.
But alas.
"Could it be that you've become–"
"No," Cter denied quickly and to the point. Not a physical one though as she had difficulty raising her hand due to how form-fitting her robe was. If anything she'd become a bit thinner what with her body having been...not in the most healthy state, the same as her soul. "The robe has shrunk." Cter nodded once and hard so that it was perfectly clear. "I can still wear it."
In fact, that it felt tight around her bandages was reassuring, in a way. How it felt that she was wearing a corset though, wasn't. Not as worse as when she had tried to help a slime monster wear one when she was a monster mage down in Jarasevo and Cter accidentally squeezed it in two on the first try, but still not the best. "Maybe it'll become a bit looser once I wear it for a bit."
The sound of scratching had Cter looking up from the fitting form of her Xoffian-washed Xoffian rode up to see Fang Shuey writing down on a ghostly parchment with a surprisingly corporeal quill. "Soft, yet prone to shrinking. Colder water?" she asked to herself. "Or maybe bubblination?" With a hollow-sounding puff she blew away a ghostly curl from her eyes. "Shrinkage not enough to discomfort past the comfort of the softening of the fabric, and helps accentuate the form better," Fang Shuey threw a glance at Cter, "especially at the–"
Cter coughed loudly into her bandaged fist which she had to crane her neck towards rather than bending her arm up to her mouth. She made sure that the cough was carried through her aura into her crystal magic so that it reverberated with a chiming quake up to where Fang Shuey was sitting. "Thank you, Mrs. Shuey" she said, but didn't mean. "Was there anything else?"
That the ghost aide put away her ghostly parchment on her incorporeal person to become invisible wasn't strange, but that she also managed to hide the physical quill she was writing with on her without as much as a hint to where it could have gone, was. Cter didn't feel any shift in the ghost aide's aura which could have indicated magic usage…
"There was another thing, yes," Mrs. Shuey acknowledged as she spun on top of the crystal arc like she was throwing over her legs. "As I just said, the pride and luster of Jarasevo Castle is the hospitality it brings to both its guests and inhabitants, both human and monsters." She leaned in for the last couple of words. "And ever since you returned from your travels to Xoff your requisitions, be it on your own volition or how the zeitgeist has deemed it necessary that you have." A small nod was aimed at Cter's left arm. "Such as bandages which the human doctor has asked that you should have fresh daily if possible."
The ghost aide's neck flinched just the tiniest while retelling, with her aura flaring an offended brown-gray, as if it was a personal affront to her that Sarbor dared suggest that it wouldn't be possible to provided a Monster Mage with a roll of bandages each day.
After a steadying exhale which wouldn't have gone amiss with some rattling of chains, the ghost aide continued as best as she could under the circumstances of her reliving the audacity implied upon her and her position by Sarbor. "In any case, what I've noticed is that what has been requisitioned for you has been leaning a lot on the human side of things...of things."
She paused for a second before shaking it off. "And yes, I do understand the reason why." Again she nodded at Cter's left arm. "What did catch my attention though was this." From behind the crystal arc Fang Shuey pulled up Cter's magical sleeve with its inert spiral, and flopped it limply on the crystal structure next to Cter's nightgown. "As well as this," Fang Shuey knocked on the crystal magic, "without this," then lifted up the end of Cter's magical sleeve to show.
Cter glanced at her inert magical sleeve while she tried to think of a way to explain it. The reason she wore bandages on her left arm wasn't because it risked bleeding, at least not during the days at least. She had managed to replicate the barricade and healing combination the fusion used to keep her arm from bleeding to the point where it was close to permanent. It had taken a while, but her magic was coming back to her.
And that was the reason she was wearing the bandages.
So that it wouldn't be known that she was able to cast magic using only her soul. That what the fusion had imparted on her left arm and soul to absorb her into its fused one made it so that she had monster on her human body, and not on a separate piece of clothing.
"I noticed while I was washing it," Fang Shuey began explaining as she caught the distressed expression in Cter's face, as well as in her aura. "The inertness of its magical lines as I washed it in the same basin as I did your Xoffian robe. Normally I try to keep the water magically inert when I treat the clothing of you Monster Mages as my way to honor your balance between human and monster, but with how much you've been human lately, Cter, it was my judgment to wash with magic on your sleeve."
The ghost aide looked to the magical sleeve with squinted eyes. "Color me surprised," she said as her transparency took on some of the solid color of Cter's crystal magic that she was sitting on, "when I didn't sense any magic in your sleeve here. I felt magic from the dust that you asked me to clean out from your robe, so I was keen on sensing it." The ghost aide's curly hair swept behind her as she turned quick from the inert magical sleeve towards Cter. "Not in the way that you described sensing it, of course." Then back to the sleeve. "I wouldn't be talking about it had that been the case."
Cter hummed in acknowledgment, but not enough to agree.
"While I understood that you could cast magic without it, especially with the display you did at the eulogy earlier this month, it didn't really stick with me before I saw..." Her ghostly patting had the crystal magic shake melodically. "And without any effort too."
The patting sounded more solid than Cter expected. For Fang Shuey too. The light dancing off Cter's crystal magic did dance similar inside of her less translucent form. It had her mind focused on how the ghost was rather than what the ghost said.
Fang noticed it with an audible "Ah," as she looked down on herself. "Seems I'm a bit invested in this." With a sweep aside of her curly fringe she hummed before explaining. "I'm confident in that you've already figure this much earlier, Monster Mage, but like fire monsters, my body changes due to my emotions. It is a more fundamental change too."
It may have been how her voice echoed against the crystal arc, but it sounded almost to Cter that Fang Shuey was bragging?
"Fire monsters' fires are a step above in terms of complexity in how their emotions affect and inform how their body should be formed by their soul and magic." A slightly pink eyebrow sank down while the other raised enough to tilt the ghost monster's head to the side. "If I say that Barbeqa's body is formed by her soul and magic and that mine is formed by my soul and aura, does that help?"
It...did?
Kinda?
"In the sense that your body is more..." No, not vapid. "More the underlying potential that is the source of your magic?" In a way… "Your body is the fire from the wood while Barbeqa's is the smoke?" However ironic that sounded.
A pause for thought passed as the ghost aide let the analogy simmer with her. "I think?" she concluded. "I suppose if you consider the wood to be the soul, then the fire, or more specifically the heat, would be the aura, and the smoke the magic in this situation." She shook her head.
"Maybe it's better if I explain that while Barbeqa can change her flames' shapes with effort and training, her flame colors change depending on her mood and emotions. For me, my body stays translucent and allows me to pass through objects if I do not think about it or give it any thought. The more I think about it the more I interact with it. I don't necessarily have to feel any emotion about it." Her ghostly knuckle knocked hard on the crystal arc. "But when I do, I might even take away the color of it on my person."
So it was a ghost Cter saw in the Royal Garden that one time!
"It took me a couple of years before I was familiar enough with this castle to navigate through it in an efficient manner. Previously I had to use the doors and open windows like those messenger monsters, which didn't feel as efficient as I should be."
"Efficient manner of manor," Cter said with a chuckle.
Which had Fang Shuey disappearing fully from sight, sinking down into Cter's crystal arc with a drained scowl. The sparse features of her face phased into being distorted and shimmering at Cter's eye height. "I was about to say that while I may have to do my job without emotion it does not mean that I don't care about those in the castle just enough to come across as professional." Her half-disgusted sigh had ghostly locks of faintly pink hair sweeping out and into the crystal arc briefly. "Seems that I have to skip ahead to my point already."
Cter wasn't gonna say it, but she would appreciate if the ghost aide did. Not in a mean way, just in a way that meant that she could get ready for the day alone.
Fang Shuey exited fully from the crystal arc she had sunk in with disappointment, placing herself with a serious inhale in front of Cter. "You need to remember that you are a Monster Mage," said the ghost with a stern, yet positive tint to her words, aura, and body. "When I said that you have been leaning more towards human it would be more accurate to say that you have leaned away from monster. Looking at what someone don't need is as important as looking at what they do need, to a reasonable degree."
Not a reasonable degree that Cter's life was in danger and that her human body was on the cusp of dying, apparently.
"It is important that you return your balance as a Monster Mage, Cter." The ghost aide's brow furrowed enough to summon a shadow over her eyes. "Like how I have to return to the habit of requisitioning for three Monster Mages rather than four."
At least Cter could feel some sympathy about that.
From far below out the window, the clock at Time's Square rang with enough bells to warrant a nod from the ghost aide. "Good thing I insisted," the ghost aide commented for herself before turning back to Cter from the opened window. "Once you are done with your morning, now midday, routines please make your way to Sir Gerson's office, Monster Mage." She fluttered over to the door, stopping just before it. The grainy wood was visible through her completely. "I'll also have your breakfast served there, Cter." She turned,"With shells on your eggs," and phased through the door to the tower stairway with only a gentle gust left in her wake.
"Hm..." Cter thought to herself as the crystal magic she had summoned began to detach through inaudible cracks and fade from existence.
"So that was how she knew."