"Don't really know if I should be asking you to keep another promise for this one..."

Cter's arms tightened around her best friend.

"...Considering what happened last time."

She felt how her best friend's aura sank like a stone in a lake around her. She felt how her own aura sank around her.

"She brought me back though, didn't she?"

Luckily she did not feel Sarbor's aura sink around her. Cter didn't feel his aura at all. The only touch she felt from his was physical, and was not even aimed at her. He had put his hand on his little sister's shoulder and as he rubbed reassuringly with his thumb he accidentally touched Cter's arm which held Idyll in a tight embrace.

While it did elicit a chuckle out of the monster, it wasn't a joyful one. Her head tilted away from burrowing into Cter's neck onto her brother's hand on her shoulder which she put weight on so that he couldn't yank it back to him. "I just got used to eating with the two of you again," she lamented with a heavy sigh. "Last supper was the only time us three ate together too." Another joyless chuckle emerged, cascading down Idyll's long hair over her face. The edge of her muzzle was still visible though, as well as its choked scowl. "I took too long to come up with the perfect dish..."

Cter had assured Idyll that whatever it was that she wanted to serve, she and Sarbor would eat it. It only mattered that Idyll got to eat together with the two most important people in her life. That was all that mattered, that it was for Idyll's sake. She could have served dried bread and her two guests would have eaten without any question. It was fully for her, and for no one else.

Which only served to further her idea that it had to be perfect, unfortunately. She had waited years upon years, so taking just a few weeks more to get her special orders in order wasn't a big deal for her. It had been years for her, so she wanted it to be something beyond special. She wanted it to be a feast worthy of Queen Toriel and King Asgore!

But she didn't have time.

Her two guests had to leave earlier than her special orders could arrive. They had to go away, leaving her at Jarasevo Castle alone again without them. They had always come back, yes, but...Sund hadn't. And now, her two siblings were traveling to Xoff again, where Sund had...died. They were traveling to Xoff for a reason they could not tell her about, only that it was important enough that the Monster Mages, Prietess Frioke, Sir Gerson, and Sarbor had to travel there.

The entire upper echelon of the Royal Guard, plus the surviving human doctor of Clinic Hill off to a plague-ridden Xoff for a mission that required secrecy even from her! Her human older brother and her sister Monster Mage could not tell her why they were going!

Because she didn't make them a great-enough feast…

"You know that's not why," said Cter in reaction to the somber, self-hating change in Idyll's aura. "You know full well it's not because of that."

She did, but it was not how she felt.

For while she had managed a meal unlike any other she had ever made for the two most important humans in her life the evening before they were set to travel to Xoff for something so important they dared not speak of it to her, could it have been better for them had she managed to make the feast that she wanted for them? If she had managed the feast, had they had a higher morale to better tackle what awaited them in Xoff? She knew the importance of a good meal. She had lived her entire life working towards one to make her brother forget about what had taken their parents away. She had succeeded with that, but only because he had other things to worry about.

And there was also something...distant about him. Something that he hid from her. Something that he didn't want her to know about, even before him informing her that he was going with the Royal Guards to Xoff for something that was bigger than him. He had changed during his time at Clinic Hill, and to what and how he wanted to spare his little sister from. He just wanted her to be happy seeing him enjoy her cooking.

He just wanted to be happy enjoying her cooking.

Cter let Idyll move her hug over to her older brother who laid his arms around her with a tenderness that Cter could not. He hugged her tightly with one large hand on the back of her neck onto his shoulder. Seeing that she was taller than him, it looked a bit awkward, but the aura of it was anything but. Idyll let hers melt over Sarbor in a way that was so unlike how she had her aura interact with Cter.

Doing so had him flinching, unfortunately, and Idyll blinked her eyes up to his in her bent and craned posture. "It's just that you've grown so tall," he defended with a chuckle and a gulp. "I have to stand up on my toes so that your chin can sit on my shoulder, Idyll. It's not like when we were kids."

"Because you're together," Cter added quickly before things could tumble the other way.

"Right, yes," Sarbor agreed with a thankful nod. "And hugging to say hello is different from hugging to say see you later, you know?"

Idyll did.

As did Cter.

From Idyll's memories Cter recognized what Sarbor said. The same he had said when left for Clinic Hill. He came back though, as he promised, even if it was years upon years. Stretching the saying of 'better late than never' to its absolute thinnest…

"Besides," Sarbor tried to cheer up with a bounce in his voice, "since we're going to the castle I'll make sure to bring back some spices for you to play with, Idyll." He took her by her weak shoulders and held her at arm's length. One of his hands he ran underneath her slumped chin to angle it up so that he could meet her in her glittering eyes. "I still haven't held that part of my promise up for you yet, after all." With a warm, brotherly smile he angled the blue, frowning muzzle down to give it a kiss on its top for good luck and to make it better.

Like how he had done when they were younger.

Idyll nodded, strengthened by her older brother's words and peck on top of her muzzle. "When they ask you to stay at the Xoff castle as their head physician, what will you answer?" She felt that she could handle the answer, whatever it was. She had managed so many years already without him, after all. When she didn't get an answer from her brother, only a scowl and a look away, she wasn't gonna take that as enough of an answer.

Not again.

"Sarbor," she said direct, "I don't want to wait again." Her head shook. "You've lived with vague goals in front of you. Cure the plague, cure what killed our parents, make the world a better place, and all that. It's not how I've lived my life. I'm a chef, which means that I make and then it's done, three times a day. It is not searching for an answer which may or may not exist, it is making an answer that exists for those that want to keep existing." Idyll's head shook again for she wasn't sure where she was going with it. Her teeth clenched, and she inhaled deeply. "Just tell me, Sarbor. Will you accept or not? I don't want to wait, not anymore."

Cter observed Sarbor intensely. If not to gauge his facial expression, but to gauge how his fledgling aura reacted. If it were to flare up due to Idyll bleeding her soul for her brother, then Cter would have to hide it from Idyll. To boot, she also had to hide that she was hiding.

To her surprise though, she didn't have to hide anything at all. She didn't even have to look at the human.

He answered directly.

"I will," said Sarbor unblinkingly to his little sister. He didn't flinch in the slightest, nor did he keep it vague for Idyll. It was his chance to show how much he loved and respected his little sister. How much he trusted in her to handle that he had his own life to live too. It wasn't his place to be a human physician at Jarasevo Castle. It wasn't his place to live with his little sister. "If they ask me then I will, and if not, then I will make a new Clinic Hill."

Idyll nodded. The strongest nod she had ever done in her life. "Jarasevo do chef trades with the human courts from time to time to hopefully invent new tastes." She smiled at her brother with both her hands clasped at the bottom of her purple apron. "And if not, then I'm sure New Clinic Hill can make do with some better cooking from time to time as well, right?"

She wanted to cry.

And so did he.

So Cter stepped away to let them. She raised barricade magic around them that would keep their crying to themselves. No one else needed to share with them. It was just between the two.

"You've gotten used to his magic, I see," mentioned Kry with a passing glance as Cter walked past him sitting on the top step of a carriage polishing the rim of his glasses. His eyes looked so small when he wasn't wearing them. "It feels like your own all the way from here."

"I raised it around them so that they could keep privacy," Cter informed while not turning around, only tilting her brow over to Kry instead. "If you wouldn't mind?"

Kry shot a white smile through his dark lips. "Can barely see you without these, so no need to worry." He gave his glasses another hot breath before angling them up into the sun. "Might be time for me to change the strength soon." He used the inner lining of his mantle over his shoulders to clean off the fogged breath. "Maybe perhaps have some crystal glass in them instead?" His playful eyebrows bounced without any hint of subtlety to them. "I jest," but he didn't really. Not with the pause and the contemplative hum that followed. "Although..."

"I'm not gonna swim around in your memories so that I know exactly the specifications of the crystal glass if that's what you're suggesting," Cter made clear even if the chance was minuscule. "No barricade magic on them too. I've not managed to have barricade magic permanent just yet. Like you said, it's his magic, and not mine."

She hinted something that Kry reacted to, replacing his glasses on the bridge of his strong nose with an audible click. "If Sund still was alive he would have been over the moon and the stars should you manage to make his magic permanent." He held his gaze at Cter for a couple of slow breaths. "And you know that, Cter. Hell, while up among the stars he would have plucked some down for you, like in that Xoff legend."

"I know that," she agreed with a repeat, "but I do not feel that." Not did she the Xoff legend Kry was talking about. She had managed a fair amount on the way with Sund's barricade magic, but she still had some to go. Making barricade magic permanent would be similar to how she figured her crystal magic should be permanent by infusing it and making it a Cooperative Connection all on its own fueled by itself and the physical nature she imparted upon her magic.

The sorting she had on her books about geology and jewel crafting in her tower room ranged from simple to complex in terms of how she managed to apply it to her magic. Once she had managed she kept them that way to always remind herself of how far she had come.

Until Fang Shuey changed them to alphabetical order…

"I understand that it is a different beast to not have anyone to talk to about barricade magic compared to how you visited that jeweler in Jarasevo to borrow a cup of his magic relevant to cutting jewels."

"It was mostly about how his tools worked, I'll have you know, Monster Mage," Cter defended with her arms folding over her chest and her hip sinking to the side. It lost its smug posture almost immediately though. "It doesn't change the fact that you're correct, however." She squeezed her folded arms. "I'm not gonna pretend that I don't find it to be a challenge and that I am looking forward to overcoming that challenge so that I feel that I'm still improving, but..." A crystal asterisk formed over her head as she inhaled through a gritted expression. That it wasn't barricade magic told even more.

"And also," added Kry with a sleeved knuckle tapping at the outer wall of the carriage. "I share with you the anxiety of planning for whatever it is you can think will happen yet knowing full well that there will be plenty-plenty that you would not have figured given a hundred years or more." Kry's eyes glanced over to Kurant helping some guard dogs lift baggage up on another carriage roof using stasis magic.

When he noticed that he was staring he yanked his eyes back to Cter. "I'd like to say that we have a strong case, but I can only speak through a monster perspective on that front lest I'd be lying through the teeth that I would smile assuredly with" He gave Cter a closed-mouth smile to further add to it. It faded a mere second later. "I shouldn't really be making things worse by talking about it, shouldn't I?"

The double negative caught Cter for a loop, so she only shrugged as an answer. "Can't really make things worse than what they already are," she said after her shrug.

"Well," Kry scoffed before tapping on the recently polished golden rim of his glasses, "if that happens then we'll deal with it. As we've done before and will continue doing."

That Cter didn't expect. "Your glasses?" Her arms uncrossed slightly. "Something about you having to change their strength? Is that it?" It had to be. What else could it have been?

Or maybe it was a whatever she had never considered before…

"Yes, my glasses."

Oh, right.

"I've had these for…" Kry trailed off as he lifted his recently polished-and-placed glasses from his nose and held them at half an arm's length. "Golly." His eyes widened like how King Asgore's did when he was struck with a surprised 'golly' himself. "How long has it been now..." The way he said it was perfectly in the middle of wanting and not wanting to remember. Between his sleeved fingers he spun his glasses, adding to them a red glow that looked familiar to King Asgore's tridents.

Kry had to be searching and thinking pretty deep for that to happen. Cter reckoned that he was trying to recall all the details he could about when he became a Monster Mage. "...Very long," Kry managed to conclude, again perfectly in-between wanting and not wanting to know. He flicked the red magic off his glasses and placed them back on his nose.

"How long?"

"If I put it like this," answered Kry with a flick of his sleeved wrist to summon a teal-colored shape of two eagles diving diagonally through the other. It was quite a blunt conjured image with not a lot of details on it, like the faded face of an old family shield. "This is what my parents bragged about me being able to magically achieve just before I met Dr. Sallus." He hovered it over to Cter who inspected it carefully as if it was an artifact. "I had the best magical tutoring money could buy at that time, remember."

Cter's eyes moved from the detail-less eagles hovering in her hand over to the respectfully gray streaks in Kry's otherwise-dark hair. "Yeah," he agreed while dragging his hand to slick it further back, "it's been a while for me. It's been a while for the First Monster Mage." His eyes and aura hiccuped with a flash of remembering. "God, the inauguration..." With his widened eyes he ran his gaze up and down his magical sleeve. "It's been an entire lifetime since I became a Monster Mage." The glove balled into a fist, displaying the glowing Delta Rune on the back. "An entire human lifespan since I abandoned my humanity with my parents. No...it's been more than a lifetime."

An entire lifetime? Even more than a full one?

Cter...she knew when Kry was inaugurated as the first Monster Mage, but she had never really given it any real...thought. "An entire human's lifespan," she repeated quietly with her eyes still on the gray streaks that shook along with Kry's head. Mages enjoyed a longer life, but how long would it be for a Monster Mage? For normal mages it was another decade or two, with Royal Mages it was three or four decades leaning more on the upper boundary with the powerful magic that preserved their souls, so how would it be with Monster Mages?

Kry did not look...old. He looked matured, like a fine wine or cheese. Respect and wisdom overflowed the moment one laid eyes on him. Kurant looked even younger, despite her soul's aversion to magic which would in theory have given her less of the age-slowing effect. Although maybe since she was connected to Queen Toriel she also inherited some of the Boss Monster trait of not aging without a child? Did Kry have both those effect fully?

Would he live longer than Cter?

"And throughout all these many years I've led," Kry sighed out. "Never have I ever just sat on a carriage step sighing and looking towards the horizon we're about to travel towards with an outright aversion to the thought." The carriage shifted slightly as he leaned forward on his balled knuckles. "I don't want to go back to my home country. I don't want to return to the castle where I realized that I was destined for more than just something for my parents to brag about. I don't want to return to where I met a friend so dear to me I decided to become as monster as possible to match him becoming as human as possible."

It shifted even more as Kry's aura and gaze moved further and further into the horizon far, far away. "We were supposed to meet, him and I, with him as a human and me as a monster." A nostalgic smile tugged at the slightly wrinkled cheek. "If it hadn't been for him and the way he almost whipped me with his long ears to convince me to take the position as the Royal Mage of Xoff I would not have become a Monster Mage."

Another sigh had the entire carriage sink along with Kry's aura and shoulders.

"And now he's dead."

He blinked back to himself and Cter.

"And I'm on my way to argue that his death was not in fact a failed plan for the monsters to usurp the humans when it comes to power that could be used to threaten. I'm on my way to pick up the pieces of the tower of piled rocks that this fusion-revelation has bumped over and spread all over. Can't just pick up the rocks though and pretend that nothing has happened or that it was just a one-time tragic event that will never repeat again. Humans have never seen a monster with a stone in their hand. A stone that could be used to attack a human, maybe? Be used to kill the human, even?"

Cter deflected the question with another shrug. She should have realized earlier that the conversation was inevitably going to come around to the topic hanging over them all more than clouds during a rainstorm. "Don't really want to fall back on argument that the Cooperative Connection already was dependent on death so why are they acting so surprised." A morbid joke, yes, but how else was Cter gonna cope with it all?

Had it not been Kry sitting on the carriage step it would have been her looking into the horizon, thinking. The worst thing they could do at the time. Thinking meant...well...thinking. Thinking about what awaited them all in the plague-stricken Xoff.

Thinking about where they all were heading didn't leave the mind any room to see hope, even less feeling any hope. The distant scare that they were to head into with chins held high to dispel a potential fire that could burn the world should they fail at it.

"Make sure you eat the honey buns before they become stale!"

So Cter would rather think about those she would return to.

"No, seriously! Don't walk away while swaying your mantle all dramatic like that, Cter! They become stale in like a day or so!"