"It is too bad that we have to meet under these circumstances, Monster Mage."

Cter's flinch was noticeable, but not enough to have her scared, just surprised.

"We outta try and come together without the fate of the world being at stake."

But not as surprised as to who it was that emerged from the one dark corner of the castle hallway where the light rolling in from the large windows facing the Royal Garden bathed with a slight green tint and texture from the shone-through leaves. Rasliela's even-greener robe was unmistakable though as she stepped out from the corner where the pillar at the bend of the wall of windows stood.

Cter felt her brow furrow, pushing deep wrinkles down on her forehead that she felt dig through her skull with their perplexed spelunking. Her head tilted slightly. "Were you..." she began, but could not finish for the life of her. No, it couldn't be!

But then why was Rasliela bending back the wide rim of her hat to restore its shape? Why else were she brushing at her shoulders? Why was the tip of her hat crooked too? There was too much evidence to the fact that Cter had to push through the flummoxed feeling in her gut and soul that refused to believe.

Refused to believe that the Royal Mage of Noitaidarr Castle as well as the General of Noitaidarr had done such a thing.

Because…

"Where you hiding in there? Between the pillars? For me?"

Why the hell would she!

No answer came from the Royal Mage in the slightly bent hat while she was busy unbending it which had come about for some strange and inexplicable reason, apparently. Once again Cter found herself not being able to attest to even a sliver of Rasliela's emotions through the Royal Mage's aura.

Whether or not this was a way for her to prompt more reaction out of Cter to both rub it in the Monster Mage's face that Rasliela could and Cter could not, and to get out a reaction she did not manage to the last time they saw each other at the Noitaidarr Trial, Cter could not tell.

"How long were you hiding for?"

As she had other questions to attend to first.

"The Royal Garden here at Jarasevo Castle still lives up to its splendid reputation," the Royal Mage attempted to draw attention to with a nod of her head and wide-brimmed hat. Doing so had her realize that the tip of her hat had been bent, which she grumbled under her breath to.

"It has been quite a few handful of years the last time I was here," Rasliela continued with her voice as untouched as she could muster. "I have not had the pleasure to be given a reason to travel back here ever since my trial to become a Royal Mage, unfortunately. My duties have been focused at internal matters in Xoff ever since...well..." She waved with her magical sleeve. "You know."

Cter pointed to the waved sleeve with her own. "Did he suggest that you would hide in this corner with an exposed beam used for storage or was it your own idea?"

There was a slight pause where Cter swore that she heard one of Rasliela's eyes twitch. "I found myself detached from my delegation," answered the Royal Mage from underneath her hat. "Like I said, it has been a long while since I last was here." A shrug flapped the wide, green brim.

"In my hubris after stopping to admire some of the paintings of the Monster Royals of yesteryear a plenty I decided that I still knew the rough layout of this castle and its many hallways that I once walked." Rasliela put her hand on the slightly shaded wall next to her, looking up so that her hat would not bend. "These knees and legs of mine seem to have forgotten in their old age though which way I needed to turn." A pat on the wall echoed slightly. "And so I lost myself." She looked back at Cter, smiling from within the shadowy dark.

"And this?" the Monster Mage asked back with a point at the shaded corner without missing a beat.

"I was forced to."

Oh really? "That so?"

Before Cter could send her eyebrows shooting through the roof of Jarasevo Castle, her ears caught a building, rattling echo from down the hallway behind her. Turning around, she caught a dark-blue hood sitting on the end of a wide tray cart that moved with alarming speed towards her and the Royal Mage. Plates, cups, cutlery, and various other rattling, easy-to-break dishes bounced violently like dice about to be thrown across the table.

"And it seems like I'm about to be forced again."

The Royal Mage slid back into the corner, filling it up and preventing Cter from seeking cover there too. With mild panic guiding her thoughts, she grew crystal skates on her boots which she used to slide over to the pillar on the other side of the hallway providing the shade for the Royal Mage's corner.

Ungracefully, Cter bumped and rolled on her shoulder against the rounded pillar, managing to get out of the way just in time for the hooded monster to take the corner with an irresponsible amount of speed and continue on with its loud rattling that faded with distance. Faded quickly too. Within just a few seconds the echo from the tray cart, too fast to be safe, wasn't audible, making its speed even more reckless.

"I've never lied to you, Monster Mage," said the Royal Mage to Cter's frightened exhale while again reshaping the wide-brimmed hat. "Nor will I ever do."

The Monster Mage needed a few seconds for her to understand that Rasliela had said something. "What?" With a small fall the crystal skates under her boots shattered into thin, iridescent sand which had the hallway floor brimming with brilliance for a few seconds before it dissipated quietly. "'Scuse?"

"Oh, nothing." Rasliela gave a determined tug on her hat's brim to flatten it, but it had gotten a slight upwards curve due to her second, forced hiding. "Say, perhaps we should try and get away from here lest a third cart comes charging at us down from either way?" She showed the first sign of nervousness that Cter had ever seen from the Royal Mage by her large hat turning quickly up and down the corner of the hallway. "If I may ask so brashly?"

Cter was keen to agree. "The closest door to the Royal Garden is this way," she showed with a step to lead and a friendly motion of her arm, making sure not to be overly friendly and block her sight down in case the next tray cart had better-maintained wheels.

"Please do," the Royal Mage nodded.

With expedience.

Once the two mages had hurried down the hallway to where the closest door to the Royal Garden was, another heralding of rattling began to echo against the painting-covered marble walls. With panic moving their legs, the two mages exhaled jointly into the breeze-swept shrubbery that finally came to surround them. Cter had barely managed to close the garden door before the glass walls began to rumble with the loud heralding of another irresponsibly quick tray cart.

Even though it passed by safely on the other side of the vibrating glass walls, it still had the two mages taking another large step away with averted leans. They followed the speeding tray cart as it rushed behind the glass walls and varied leaves of the different bushes and trees of the Royal Garden, gulping their fear.

"So..." Rasliela was the first one to push her heart and soul back down her throat. "How come you got lost too, Monster Mage?"

Well… "I didn't." Not technically. "It seems like I missed that this hallway was gonna be used as a service hallway for today and forward." Cter motioned clumsily with her hand which was still weary of the immense threat of rattling kitchenware on small wheels at high velocity.

"I usually use it as a shortcut of sorts which I'm guessing it is why they decided to have it be a service hallway." She waved at the thick shrubbery around her and Rasliela. "Hard to see through the greenery here which I appreciate when I want to have a quiet walk for myself, and which I'm guessing they appreciate as it hides the service from the guests."

"From this side," added Rasliela with enough weight to buckle the hill on which she stood on.

Cter nodded quietly. "Yes."

A quiet emerged which the two mages shared in for a long, silent minute wherein they both allowed the breeze to coat their hair and hat with a few spinning seeds of a nearby maple tree borrowed from Hjearta. They held their breaths in case another tray cart would pass them by, but eventually the suspense grew too strong, and they both slipped deeper down the gravel trail adorned with flat stepping stones.

"I hope the greeting ceremony was to your liking," said the Monster Mage after the silence between the mages had turned from solidarity of a common fear to plainly awkward. "And that despite getting lost and almost...um...run over twice, you still have come to appreciate that us monsters still value our relations with you humans."

Rasliela had some trouble navigating her hat through the branches heavy with greenery without making a loud rustle. "Your efforts in welcoming us with such warmth that only monster could bring has not gone unnoticed, Monster Mage."

Especially when trying to walk next to Cter on the rather-narrow stepping stones. Coincidence would have it that her hat brushed by the tall bushes and low-hanging leaves rather than tapping Cter on the throat or neck. "Trust me when I say that I wish deeply that it was all that it took to bring the world's worries down to something sensible."

Even as Cter made a conscious effort to step aside to make some room for the wide hat there was still a wake of perturbed leaves whispering in disbelief that a guest to the castle could be so uncouth as to ruffle the meticulously organized greenery in the Royal Garden. "I wish for nothing more."

Cter hummed under her breath.

Around the two mages keeping an arm's distance, both physically and emotionally, the thick greenery eventually thinned out into more separated exhibitions of different clusters of flowers and plants which the Monster King had both planted and arranged by his own hands and magic.

Maintaining them he did on his own as well, resulting in patches of brilliant luster placed like pleasant surprises in the Royal Garden. From high up it was said to resemble the Delta Rune which had been introduced back into the royal lineage by Queen Toriel, however that was mostly kept between the avian monsters as their own privilege to share both in honor of the Monster Royals and to brag for their own benefit.

The shadow of one passed by over Rasliela's hat, circling back to one of the watchtowers where Cter lost track of it due to the sun's position.

"Don't seem like my words hold as much weight as your proclamation would imply, Monster Mage," noted the Royal Mage after a careful kneel to smell at one of the desert roses growing in its own lot.

"Precautions," answered Cter while offering her right arm to help Rasliela up on her feet again. "Sir Gerson likes to overplan rather than underplan when it comes to human affairs." The Royal Mage accepted the offer after a brief, reluctant pause. "And the affairs that are set to be discussed here at the gathered council are something you'd rather overplan for even if it was to be hosted at a human castle, no?"

Cter held her grip on the wrinkled hand of the Noitaidarr General without a single blink to her eyes. "Do understand, Monster Mage," said the general in response slowly and with a deliberate tone, "that the matter at hand is something that necessitates the remaining neutrality that you monsters have by not being humans." She slipped her hand out of Cter's helping grip. "Even though King Asgore made it loud and clear that he was in support of the current king sitting on the Xoff throne."

That Rasliela was able to still hide her emotion even through such a loaded sentence both impressed and annoyed Cter. Not enough though to have her confront the Royal Mage about something that had been bothering her and her colleagues ever since the letter from the Xoff king arrived to first tell about the whispers of his legitimacy being brought into question.

It wasn't enough just yet.

"Although for being so famous for his gardening, King Asgore sure seems a novice when it comes to the desert roses." Rasliela nodded the most she had the entire day at the garden plot featuring the single, blue rose stood opened wide. "By the smell alone I can tell that it is wilting."

But suddenly it was enough.

"You said before that you had never lied to me, Rasliela," said Cter while the Royal Mage headed over to the next garden plot, stopping halfway. The Monster Mage kneeled over much easier than the older mage had, caressing her sleeved hand over the desert flower to give it a layer of dew onto its flowering petals. Without help, she stood up on her own.

"The rose is wilting," commented Rasliela back with a small angle to her hat. "That I did not lie about." The angle disappeared as the Royal Mage found a berry bush from Hjearta in full bloom.

"Despite the full, cheap bouquets you most likely saw on the streets of Noitaidarr, the skill in cultivating the desert roses is still the same as it has been for ages upon ages past, as evident by your green-fingered, bordering green-wristed, Monster King failing to keep the one in his own personal garden from wilting."

The General of Noitaidarr rolled an unripe berry between the looseness of her fingers. "For each bouquet that survived there were ten or fifteen that ended up as either fertilizer or feed for stock. Once they were prouded on the crest of the house that ruled Xoff for time immemorial, but now?"

The berry was squished, sending drops of dark-blue juice onto one of the white flowers of the bush.

"Now it adorns each window in each home on each street in Noitaidarr like a disposable rag waiting to wilt only to be replaced anew at a pittance a cost."

Cter could almost hear the Royal Mage smile from underneath the width of her hat. She knew. She knew what Cter wanted to ask, and for the first time since the two had met, Cter could tell an emotion from the Royal Mage.

No…

No, not from the Royal Mage.

From her sleeve.

"A crest you'd like to put back on the throne, Princess Rasliela?"

The pulse of aura from the Royal Mage's sleeve was strong, but brief. A flash that could have easily been mistaken for a quick blink. Cter knew that it was a flash though. She knew that she did not blink.

And more so, Rasliela knew that Cter knew.

"That so, Monster Mage?" slicked out from a grin stretched thin and delighted. A few painterly strokes of squeezed berry juice darkened the leaves as Rasliela dried her fingers on the bush. As sudden as it had appeared, the flash of excited aura was subdued from the Royal Mage's sleeve, making her aura unreadable once more. The slick way she addressed Cter though did not pass the Monster Mage by though. "You're implying something, are you?"

Cter wasn't gonna play any games. "You know full well what it is I am talking about." She looked at the husk of the berry with all its juice squeezed out of it. "Why are you here?" It was smeared like poorly applied jam on the bush leaf.

"Why are you here when the throne that you want back so much is in Xoff? The council gathered here is to help stomp out the rumored legitimate claim to the Xoff throne, not to fan it stronger. You speaking up against it will bring attention to you which you've made an effort not to bring to yourself, as is your bread and butter."

No games at all with the Royal Mage!

"Like with the Royal Butler at Fenkeep Castle you could have denied the invitation. His reasoning of denying the invitation due to biases that might arise from his position you would share, I reckon?."

The wide-brimmed hat leaned slightly up towards the guard tower in front of the sun. "And now you're wondering why I told you about who I was?" She didn't seem that concerned about the fact. "On paper it sounds like a bad idea to let the side favoring the current ruler of Xoff's legitimacy know about my grandfather and that I am the true heir to the Xoff throne. After all, what is stopping you from using that against me?"

Rasliela waved friendly up to the guard tower despite not being able to see it with the bright sun behind it. "Or, to be more specific, what has been stopping you from using it against me throughout these last couple of years?"

Cter should have just waved down the Royal Guard up in the tower. She should have waved one of them down and told them to inform the delegations as well as the Royal Councilors that she was insisting that the council should begin immediately and that she had something grand to reveal to all.

She had no qualms about making herself a martyr before at the Noitaidarr Trial. There was no hesitation from her when she revealed to the world the White Flesh on her left hand.

So why didn't she do that?

"You monsters have had plenty of opportunity to point me out as the source of contention within Noitaidarr Castle."

Why didn't she gather the humans to tell them that Rasliela was the Princess of the Xoff Lineage, true heir to the Xoff throne?

"I know you told the others that were at Noitaidarr Castle, but have you informed your king too that it is me? Does he know that the one that threatens to seize the throne from his beloved friend was invited to his own castle and is now walking around in his personal garden?"

Why?

"Making light of his gardening skills to pass the time? He must have a good reason to not confront me about this?"

Why!

"It's because I've been the one saving grace for monsters in Xoff, isn't it?"

Why…

Rasliela breathed in the refreshing gust that swept through the garden gleefully. The edge of her hat flicked up to reveal how content she looked.

"The Royal Mage of Noitaidarr castle, having argued against the monsters at the Noitaidarr Trial, then turned to argue for them in the following years as the aftermath of the truth of the Cooperative Connection scoured the land like miasma, poisoning the relationship between humans and monsters. From the trial the Royal Mage of Noitaidarr came to understand the monsters' side, and had a change of heart."

"Why?"

The flicked-up edge fell down as the gust became faint to the touch. "Because you are the only one I've told who I truly am, Cter," was said with the faux-joy in the old mage's voice entirely gone. "You are the only one that I have shared this secret of mine." A pitiful chuckle had the crunched tip bouncing.

"And once more, I did not lie to you when I told you that I felt comfortable sharing it with you. You will not go about sharing this without a second thought, perhaps even a third one." Rasliela shook her head. "No, you will have kept this to your small group of Royal Councilors the same you did the carvings on your arm up until when things became too dire for you that you saw no choice but to resort to making yourself the sole reason for the events leading up to and following Clinic Hill."

Cter didn't answer.

But Rasliela needed none. "That still haunts you. That still haunts all of the Royal Councilors. I know that because my secret that I told you is not known by others. They all see me as one of the last voices speaking in favor of the monsters in these troubled times." Through the thick shrubbery she and Cter came from Rasliela followed a glimpse of a fast tray cart hurrying more than its own good. "And that you can not lose."

Every single time Cter had read someone else's aura and emotion she had done it to make good. She had done it to help! She had done it to help the monsters and mages express themselves in ways they could not in that moment!

Every single time Rasliela had read Cter's aura and emotion it had been for the old mage's own benefit. It wasn't too far a stretch to assume that she was doing the same for others too. Collecting it all for herself rather than helping the one she read!

"How would you grandfather react to you now?"

The question took Rasliela by surprise.

"The old Monster King that you wear. Do you speak well of the monsters because of him? Do you paint yourself as the last human voice speaking for the monsters so that you can still apply the Cooperative Connection he entrusted to you?"

With a tilt up of the wide hat, Rasliela inspected her sleeved arm only to break into an amused titter. "Oh, Monster Mage, how I envy your young naivete."

Young naiv…

Wait!

"It is not because of my grandfather that I speak well of the monsters."

She can't mean that...

"It is in spite of him that I speak well of the monsters."