"My grandfather was a cultivator of desert roses when he was young."

The table in the Royal Garden glade had been sat at earlier, as evident by the few specks of crumbs that still remained on the glass surface along with a few faint circles of dried tea. The Royal Mage had no qualms about wetting her thumb with her tongue to then rub away the taste-dense circles after having brushed away the crumbs of chosen pastry. In the gravel next to where Rasliela sat Cter saw the wide footsteps of her best friend sunk down deeply in the pebbles, having served the humans who had sat at the glade's table earlier.

It had her worried.

"Before you continue," the Monster Mage interrupted the Royal Mage with a pleading bend of her head. "If you could please tell me first about the watch you gave Sarbor...Dr. Fech, pray? I met it and him earlier."

The wide hat turned to the flag-abundant side of the castle where Cter was looking forlorn towards. "Did he say that he had to wait there for a while longer?" There was care in her voice which she consciously let slip out.

Even though it was consciously, Cter still appreciated it. "He did not say a time, just that it had to be longer."

A few nods sent waves through the green fabric. "I see." There was a thoughtful pause. "While I understand why that is, I'm also fairly confident that a lot of it today is due to himself."

Cter sat down opposite Rasliela with a sweep-away of the crumbs on her side of the glass table. "Due to himself?" she asked with curiosity. "As in, not by his soul?"

"Traveling here to Jarasevo Castle from Xoff again had him being reminded of when he traveled here with you from Clinic Hill." The Royal Mage motioned to the Monster Mage's fake sleeve that hid her true magic.

"And once you find yourself in a pit of anxiety, each time you fail to get out of it you sink further down into it. I insisted I travel in the same carriage with him so that I can help soothe, but he insisted back that it was something he had to find a way to keep under control himself. When I noticed that his soul had returned to him I pondered if it was worth telling him that. Eventually he would come find out himself though, and then he did rightfully accuse me of hiding it from him."

Cter found herself agreeing with the loose shrug the Royal Mage gave.

"So I made him that watch of his. He had gotten it from the Hero of Xoff to use in his medical duties. It broke at some point, most likely due to its age, but instead of throwing away a gift from a hero of his country, he asked me if I could fix it. I don't know if he believed that I had the magical capabilities to or whatever it was that had him thinking to come to me first rather than a watchsmith, but fair to say I was a bit surprised by his approach."

The old mage chuckled. "I mentioned that I could have it read his aura mostly as a whim of the moment, but sometimes it is our whims that guide us to somewhere we did not think about before."

Cter could agree with that too.

"It is a simple magic, really. Depending on how much his aura is active it has one of the larger springs in the clock's mechanism weighing heavier, compressing it. That in turn works the mechanism for the minute handle, making it move."

Agreeable too, even if Rasliela omitted that she added a layer of magical obscurity over it which had Cter unable to sense how it worked when Sarbor used it.

"He uses a silver watch for his medical and everyday application nowadays." The Royal Mage checked to see if she found any stains before putting down her forearms on the glass table. "The pocket where he keeps his golden watch in is looser compared to the one his silver watch is in."

It fit with what he was saying before when Cter talked to him. His worries about being a fraud due to what he claimed to have cured returning to him, and perhaps the Hero of Xoff and his men in the future too, and that he came to Jarasevo Castle to help with something that he could control.

But regarding all else Rasliela had said it wasn't going to be something he would have control over either.

"What if I tell him?" Cter still put out there between her and the Royal Mage to perhaps gauge a reaction. "What if I tell Dr. Fech that you are the Princess of the Lineage? Give him the control he seeks by revealing to him that the one making the waves of discontent and unrest bigger is the Royal Mage who gave him his golden watch?"

"How do you think he will react?" replied Rasliela with a genuine curiosity she let through in her voice. "Or, perhaps a better question if I ask who's side in the succession you think he is on?"

Did...did she ask just to throw Cter off her balance? "The current king," answered the Monster Mage without pause. "Why wouldn't he?"

Rasliela's answer back was simple and said without any tense strain to either her voice, her body, or the fabric on her attire. "Because the current king killed his parents." Was all she felt she needed to say.

"It is something he has felt for a very, very long time. For all his brilliance and intellect he is but a human. More than that, he is a human that has gone through enough trauma to last him lifetimes over. The current king and his pretend lineage has allowed more and more of monster means to take more and more prominence within Xoff, something that began after my grandfather's self-imposed exile. Began when he ascended to the throne, but was given honor and respect when he made his choice for the betterment of his country."

The wide hat tilted over to the single blue flower in its own sand-filled plot. "The same with the flowers that adorned the crest that the current pretender to the throne swept aside to be replaced by his own."

A glow was suppressed in Rasliela's sleeve.

"It is because of the current king that the Fechs' parents died from the disease that Dr. Fech found a cure for merely a year after his apprenticeship under Dr. Sallus began. It is because of the current king that Dr. Fech had to leave his little sister alone without a family to make sure what befell him and his sister did not happen to others. If only he'd known then that it was due to the current king back then. If only he'd known..."

Cter did not agree with that. "It is because of the current king and the ones that came before him that Sarbor has a little sister he cares for in the first place. It is because of the current king that Sarbor became the brilliant physician he is today. His alternate theory to miasma is gaining support more and more in the field of medicine and has already stopped another outbreak in Xoff, hasn't it?"

The alternate theory that traced the source of the plague at Clinic Village to ground water seeping in from runoff down Clinic Hill into the pump in the middle of the village square.

The pump that Cter did not drink from.

But from which Sund did…

"It has only been gaining traction because it is a human-made theory that seeks to push aside the monster-made theory. Dr. Fech's alternate theory isn't necessarily more correct than the miasma theory his late mentor developed, he just published it at the right time for it to gain the traction it has." Rasliela leaned back in her chair, her hat slicing into the greenery behind her. "And as you can hear I am still speaking in favor of you monsters, even to the point where I am calling into question a new medicinal model even though it has proven to be potent with the plagues that Xoff has dealt with for so long."

Before Cter could retort, Rasliela leaned forwards again, rustling the climbing vines behind her.

"Dr. Fech is a human, and is therefor biased towards ignoring the good and only seeing the bad in where he places his negative thoughts onto. He will call into question if the current king of Xoff killed his parents, if he hasn't already. He will call into question, yet also be blind towards the good in his life that has come due to the loose policies Xoff has had on monsters these last few centuries. That's just how humans are. They see the worse in things much clearer than the see the best in things."

Cter leaned forward the same. "Just like you?"

A faint grin thinned the old lips in the dark underneath the wide-brimmed hat. "And this is why I tell you things I don't to others, Cter." The grin was held as the Royal Mage relaxed her presence. "Even if your replies are as predictable as the blossom come spring."

"Tsk!" spat the Monster Mage away from the table. "Your old age has brought you naught but cynicism and a sense of bitterness towards your failed promise." She let her aura burn against the Royal Mage sat so confident and comfortable among all the lush greenery around her in the same color as her full attire and Cter's robe underneath her purple cloak.

"You've had a staggering amount of years that you could have put this plan of yours into motion, but never did you. Never did you feel confident in your own promise and your abilities. This sense of unworthy and the weight on your shoulders that your grandfather passed onto you in his last moments have made you hesitate for oh so long. Only when the world came to be what it is today did you dare begin what you had promised your grandfather. Look at yourself, you're older than he was when he died. How would he react seeing his Princess with more wrinkles made from bitterness than old age?"

A long, silent shake of the wide hat flowed with the wind side to side. "You still don't get it, do you?" Rasliela let flow with immense disappointment from inside her hat's shadow. Her magical sleeve she presented as if it was the first time she did, placed flat on the glass table at an angle.

"My grandfather is with me, and has always been. My impatience has gotten me close to acting at inopportune moments, and it has always been by his advising that I have been able to hold myself back. To be constantly reminded that you've made a promise, Monster Mage. To be constantly reminded by the one that made you promise them."

The Princess of the Lineage pivoted up her sleeve via her elbow. "He would never do it, but by the mere fact that our souls are connected as strongly as they are I am constantly reminded that I still have a legacy that was taken away from my mother and my grandfather."

The narrowed eyes, peeking just below the sharp brim towards Cter, widened as Rasliela's eyes shifted to her sleeve rather than through it at the Monster Mage sitting with a confronting lean forward. The Royal Mage breathed out, collecting herself. "Yes, grandfather," she spoke to herself, but loud enough for Cter to hear. "I'll be calm."

Cter kept her accusing lean even though Rasliela retreated her sleeve into the shadows of her wide hat, clutching it. To be perfectly honest Cter took Rasliela talking about her grandfather's connection as slightly hyperbolic when it came to the closeness she implied. Seeing, and hearing, the old mage mutter to her clutched sleeve like it was a doll she spoke secrets to had that hyperbole straightening out. "Do you know how many mages that are around that could be called old without anyone disagreeing to the notion, Rasliela?"

"The previous Royal Mage of Fenkeep Castle and me makes two," she answered while appearing from her hat's shadow that she tilted up. "I wouldn't call the First Monster Mage old, although that could be me being biased. He is mature. Matured like the most opulent of wines, if I'm allowed to indulge for a moment."

Rasliela didn't get a cheeky smile back from the Monster Mage who had sank down with her nose over the layered flats of her hands supported by her elbows. "His gray streaks in his hairs have thickened though since last I saw him at Noitaidarr Castle. Only for the better though, says I. Silver linings, but worth like gold."

"Lerljung is still a mage because she was a Royal Mage before," informed Cter with a shift of her eyes over to where the Hjearta delegation had their rooms.

"Otherwise she would have hung up her sleeve a long, long time ago. Family and death have passed her by more times than any human should ever experience. As humans have been able to be more and more attuned to magic, the age which humans reach their prime in magical abilities have moved later and later. Due to that, a lot of younger mages have friend and family circles more focused on and with monsters as they grow older. At the beginning of humanity's exploration of magic the increased age allotted to mages due to their soul wasn't as noticeable as it is today. Twice, thrice, and almost quadruple with you and your Boss Monster sleeve."

"With my grandfather, yes," came a quick correction.

Which Cter ignored. "Lerljung approached me at the Noitaidar after I revealed the Fusion to the world. She opened her soul to me about all the friends and family she had seen grow old without her, leaving her behind. What drove her to still stay behind was to seek the truth of the human soul. What it was, what it did, and what it meant. She told me that she resented me for revealing to her that all the fallen down she had threaded through felt to her as if it had been for naught."

The unfazed expression of the Royal Mage was met just the same from the Monster Mage.

"She resented me," Cter continued, "but as she spoke, I could feel in her aura all the happy memories she had of her human friends and family that she had outlived. Children, grandchildren. Even an apprentice under her wing that had taken flight as the new Royal Mage at Fenkeep Castle. A soar so magnificent that he was given the title of the magic he specialized in. He is still with her, and he will be the one to finally outlive her."

"If you are trying to accuse me of struggling to separate the magic in my soul with the magic in my sleeve then I'm afraid you are a bit late with that, Monster Mage. As soon as my grandfather made me his last desert rose which he would cultivate to blossom on the Xoff throne once more I heard him speak through my soul."

Rasliela rubbed her sleeved finger together.

"I have had friends and a family too in my many days. Manny calls me his grandmother even today even though he's grown up so much. I haven't lost myself to the memories inside my sleeve for more than a hundred years, Monster Mage, and I won't today or tomorrow either. I won't lose myself because my grandfather won't allow me to."

Cter shook her head, "That was not what I meant," holding in the follow-up for a few seconds to have the Royal Mage guess. "It took courage for Lerljung to tell me what she did. It took courage because she did it out of a sense of the greater good. It was not for her that she told me, but for me. It was for the monsters that she told me that she resented them and me. She told me because she did not want to resent the monsters. She told me because she wanted to make better of this awful situation that the Fusion has brought upon our two races."

Another shake, disappointed rather than denying, had Cter's brow sinking down with a dark undertone. "Lerljung wasn't a coward who saw the dark clouds that formed on the horizon due to the truth of the Cooperative Connection and turned her cape to the ill winds that the clouds brought with them."

The air could have become lightning between the Royal Mage and the Monster Mage.

"You speak of me and cowardice when I am the only one making good words towards monsters at the Noitaidarr court?" huffed Rasliela with a rich expression. "Now you're getting a bit too interesting even for me, Monster Mage."

"I'd prefer you lying to me than treating me for a fool," retorted the Monster Mage with an ever richer expression. She broke off from her lean onto the flat of her hands, folding her arms instead with a stern tilt of her head. "From where I stand you have more to lose with me revealing that you are the Princess of the Lineage than I have to lose."

"To whom, really, pray tell?" Rasliela looked over to where the Xoff delegations had their rooms, opposite of where the Xoff delegation had their accommodations. "Dr. Fech? Manny? The Hero of Xoff? The humans who have suffered directly at the hands of the Fusion come to fruition by the friendliness to you monsters? You think they will harbor ill intent towards me?"

There was confidence in the shrug the Royal Mage produced from underneath her hat's brim.

"Frankly that is almost insulting that you believe that you know them better having met them once years past compared to me who have been in the same royal court as them throughout these last years, Monster Mage. They have all been failed by the current king of Xoff one way or another in a major event in their life, and if you were to bring up that I am the Princess of the Lineage they would have second, if not third thoughts about their oaths to serve their king."

Cter looked to the nearby patch of Echo Flowers, but decided against it. Rasliela proclaiming that she was indeed the Princess of the Lineage in her own words and voice was good to have, but it would be needed without context for maximum effect. Cter saved the feeling of it though.

That she knew she could use with her own context.

Rasliela took Cter's thinking as her not being able to respond. "And as I apparently have to remind you about, I am the only one speaking in good terms about the monsters," she continued with a tap on the glass table.

"I want to keep this succession a domestic affair if I can, but with how connected things are in this day and age, even with the reduction in monster-dominated trade, things have already spilled out. As soon as the king heard the first whisper he panicked and sent away letters to both the Hjearta royals as well as King Asgore here, only affirming how insecure he feels on the throne, and that he doesn't belong there."

The tapping hardened.

"Before my grandfather was forced to abdicate my people did not need the monsters' help to settle deeper into the desert. The architecture our capital stands so proudly upon was made out of necessity to cope with the golden dunes that stretch beyond the horizon. All that we call Xoff is due to our battle against the desert we claimed as our home because we could survive in it. Only us could. Only Xoff could tame the desert."

The tapping stopped as Rasliela listened in to her sleeve, breathing out calmly after a few seconds.

"Hehe," followed the Royal Mage's exhale. "Gotta save some for the council, don't I?" As if she was rudely walking away in the middle of tea she stood up with a bowing nod towards the Monster Mage. "Few things make me feel alive after having lived for so long than to have someone not back down due to their respect towards me and my age and title." As her nod came back up there was a small smile on the wrinkled lips. "The most powerful mage in the world still knows that she is just that, and because of that I still do not regret telling you about who I truly am. You and I will be deciding the fate of both the humans and the monsters one day, Cter. If long enough, it might just be only you that decides."

The Monster Mage peered through narrowed eyes as Rasliela walked over to the garden plot where alone stood the blue desert rose tended to by King Asgore. Reaching down with her sleeved arm instead of her naked one which she did before, the Prince of the Lineage caressed the flower, struggling up on her legs again with a weak quiver.

As she headed down another stone path than the one she and Cter had arrived on, the Monster Mage noticed that the petals on the desert rose had gotten a bit more life to their color. It had gone from a sky-blue to a more lake-blue color. Denser, more lively.

Cter's stare at it only lasted for a few seconds before a wide shadow descended next to her, landing into the gravel softly despite its quick descent. "Monster Mage!" the griffon Royal Guard addressed before the gravel his feet shot up with his landing had fallen back down. "I felt your aura just now. Is everything okay?"

With a look between the long, feathery ears stood up from the griffon's bow, Cter caught a door on the far side of the Royal Garden close. "It's nothing," she lied with a small, annoyed chuckle.

"It's nothing."