The voices of the kings filled the glade thicker than the forest around it. Same as the wind rolling down the hillside their words rolled down the gentle slope like boulders that collided with the sitting backs of the two Monster Mages sitting side by side with a pot of warm stew hovering on top of a small magical fire between them. The wind and the words of the kings had their robes reaching forward towards Mt. Ebott and Mt. Ymmet's peeking peaks above the far horizon. Each of the argued words tapped at the Monster Mages' backs like fingers wanting for them to turn around and be a part of the negotiations.

But they refused.

The distant sun casting its warm, late-afternoon glow was enough to remind Cter that the negotiations had gone on for almost the entire day. Enough to remind her that she wasn't a part of the negotiations, but only a means for them to happen.

The Monster Mage that sat next to her had also come to that realization, and as King Asgore brought forth the large pot of stew to offer as a meal a few hours prior, the younger of the two Monster Mages had asked if it was possible for them two to eat without the kings. "We won't escape, for that would only make worse." He did not want to be near the kings though, that much was clear. He had something he wanted to talk with Cter about alone if possible.

She had something she wanted to talk with him about as well. However though, it was not something she wanted to start talking about on an empty stomach. Eating would do good for the two. Eating together would do better. The tense air that had built between the two warring kings might have been of a civil nature, but there were still tensions between the two. Cter could feel both King Asgore and the Xoff king's souls as they went back and forth about how to put an end to the war between them.

They were sitting enough of a distance away from the campfire that their kingly voices bothered equally as much as the wind did. It had the two kings' souls feeling faint as well. Still though the campfire was ablaze not with fire but with words, and the heat from which still reached the two Monster Mages even if it was only a warm breeze. They both knew that it would burn through the entire night if necessary.

A muffled crunch the Fourth Monster Mage heard through her hat which she still wore. She didn't know why she hadn't taken it off, only that she felt it appropriate somehow that she kept wearing it. Maybe she did because she still wanted to hide who she was since she was still in the custody of the humans. If that was so then her crystal brooch poking through the hole it had made in the pointy hat did little to hide her identity. Maybe instead it was because the brim of it covered her neck from the wind and the words tapping at her back to turn around. If so then it did its job very well.

Another muffled crunch brought the Fourth Monster Mage out of her thoughts. She carefully angled her wide brim up to look at the apparent Fifth Monster Mage with an unpeeled egg floating on some stew in the wooden spoon he brought up to eat. Cter could not feel the exact emotion in Manny's aura as he bit down on it, but she could see on the slight shift in his expression that he was not fully accustomed to the texture. Still though he did not seem to be against it. He wasn't used to it, but he could if he wanted.

And it seemed like he wanted.

"Took me quite a while to get used to it as well," said Cter with a slightly nostalgic tone as she scooped up an egg from her bowl. The shell had turned a slight brown due to the stew and as she chewed the initial crunch she could appreciate how the taste had sunk into the shell. The crunch and bumpy texture of the shell complimented the smooth taste of the stew, bringing it together like a cracker with some cheese on top.

All that was needed additionally was some wine to heighten it, but Cter knew that she wasn't in a position to ask for some aged Royal Purple as a prisoner of war. She hadn't managed to push that far enough when she was at Soul's School, so doing so as the two kings were negotiating was completely out of the question.

Cter had learned that she didn't know as much as she thought she did, but at least she knew that for a complete certain.

"Eventually one day I found myself thinking that I had always enjoyed eggs like this," said Cter after washing down the egg with some broth. "And later on I found myself wincing at the sight of humans peeling the egg." There was no reaction from the Fifth Monster Mage. "That's not to say that the shell is never not used. Pancakes and the likes shouldn't really have pieces of broken shell within them. Besides, Barbeqa enjoys the taste of the shells so whenever she gets the chance to just use the inside of the shells she descends upon that recipe as ferociously as she likes to believe that we do when we eat the finished meal."

The stew wasn't made by her though, Cter could tell. It had been a long while since she last had some of Barbeqa's cooking, but still she could tell by how it was subtle in its seasoning. Neither was it Idyll's cooking, for the exact same reason. It had to be some field cook's work that King Asgore had brought with him. Perhaps from that sheep cook Ramsejl? His brother Mooses as well?

Cter had seen them in the Royal Kitchen a handful of times, but not enough to get a feel for their cooking. She knew that they were field cooks though, and quite effective too since they were brothers working together. Sir Gerson said that food would be the one comfort should war between humans and monsters break out, and by the taste of the subdued stew it seemed like he was correct in that. The taste was melancholy in a warm and pleasant way, meant to be eaten around a campfire with those close to you.

Explained why King Asgore brought it with him then.

"Is there a way to eat it without it risking slashing at your tongue and gum?" was asked from within the Fifth Monster Mage's purple hood. Manny tilted his head quietly over to Cter, but not enough to show his face clearly for her. To be fair, Cter was hiding hers as well, most likely for the same reasons.

Unfortunately Cter did not have another egg to demonstrate in her bowl so she had to scoop around with the ladle in the pot between them to find one. "The ways that I've done it is to either take bites out of it with the side of your mouth so that you crunch the pieces small immediately, or that you first have some soup or broth in your mouth then bite with your front teeth so that the bitten pieces lay themselves flat as they float on the soup or broth."

One egg she found at stuck under some sunk vegetables and fished it up and out into her bowl. "Should go without saying that you'll do best in beginning at the tip of the egg."

Then why did she say it then?

"I see," said the Fifth Monster Mage without much conviction in his voice. Almost enough to make it sound like he regretted asking, albeit not because of the answer he got. He still held his gentle tilt towards Cter, as if still wanting to talk with her, yet he couldn't say much else. "Thank you."

Cter knew that feeling all too well. "You want to talk about your magic, don't you?"

Manny didn't look away.

"You want to talk about it, but you don't want to say anything about it." The Fourth Monster Mage held out her left arm with its loose sleeve exposing the end of her magical carvings with their soft, white glow. "You want to talk, but you don't want to explain."

The Fifth Monster Mage looked away, turning his head towards a patch of the surrounding forest identical to any other patch around. Had he been looking over Cter's shoulder in that vague direction he could have had the excuse that he was looking towards where the Royal Mage of Ice had turned back into the forest after some token arguing that he should stay as protection and or as a third, independent party. From how he formulated his token arguing it was clear that he did it just so that he could be ordered to leave to cover for himself against the other Royal Mage left sitting in the carriage.

"You'll see your grandmother soon, Manny. You'll be back with her again, I promise." Cter managed to set aside enough of her disdain for the old mage to have her words be genuine for the young mage next to her. "I can tell that she has missed you. Unfortunately I haven't been a good-enough substitution for her." Her chuckle didn't infect Manny, nor did it affect him too. "Not entirely her fault for that matter though." The undertones that carried with the sentence were enough to become overly apparent. "Agreeing to disagreeing is the most we can agree on nowadays, I'm afraid."

Amid the pause that folded itself over the two Monster Mages the voices of the kings up the hill managed to roll between them speaking of losses to trust. Like a snap of cold the words echoed inside Cter's spine, and she had to warm herself with more stew to weather it.

"How did it feel for you when the First Fusion died?"

The warm stew turned into a fine mist that hung for a brief moment in the air before they were coughed away by the Fourth Monster Mage who had almost drowned herself due to the Fifth Monster Mage's sudden, direct question. Between her uneven inhales the voices of the kings halted. The sound of metal cookery being handled followed soon thereafter, and as Cter regained her breathing she looked up the hill to find that the two kings had moved further up the hill underneath a lone aspen tree which they had settled at to continue their negotiations.

Their voices were fainter, but the weight of their words still tumbled down the hill like rocks. There was no moss settling in their conversation anytime soon.

"The First Fusion," began Cter before forcing out a final cough to make sure she had it under control. "The First Fusion was killed by Sarbor, not me." That Manny should have known already. "I was...I was surrendered under it when it died, willingly. For days I was apparently unconscious in the Hero of Xoff's camp, and I do not remember anything from it. I–"

She...didn't remember anything from it.

"I ask," said the Fifth Monster Mage with his head still turned away. A small gust up the hill flicked at his hood, but Cter's brow had sunk too much over her eyes for her to notice. "I ask because Sarbor could not explain how it felt in his soul. He could only explain how it felt physically to kill the First Fusion. It was...different from how I felt it. The way the Second Fusion died was...different from how the First Fusion died. The way I killed it was...different from how Sarbor did it."

Cter did not remember anything after the First Fusion had imposed itself on her soul.

"It died not by its head being cut off, but from its connection to its soul being severed. I…" Difficult breaths fluttered the voice of the Fifth Monster Mage. "I remember how you had told that you did to give Sarbor a chance to slay it, and I..." The flutters became sharper and uneven. "I tried to give myself to it, but it did not want me. I could see that it made a choice. I saw it in its hollow eyes that it made a choice. I saw that it had thought and clarity within it in that moment. It did not want me, but why I could not understand."

She did not remember when she had gotten her spiral lines on her sleeve.

"I still don't understand! I still don't understand why it was that the Second Fusion made that choice. I don't understand how it made that choice. Were they still alive within it? Were they still...they? And not it? Could they think? Could it think? Could it feel? Plan? Make and inflict judgment on me?" Waves of deep, raspy inhales carried along with the Fifth Monster Mage's lamentations. "It still haunts me when I try to sleep. I still don't know if they were it or if it was they! I killed it, but did I kill the human and the monster that they were too?"

And she did not remember that faithful night. She only remembered what Idyll did from that night.

"It was why I came to you monsters. It was why I surrendered myself to your side, and to become one of you. All I received from the humans around me were praise and congratulations. All I received were them thanking me for stopping what hurt them. They could not explain what happened to me. All they could tell was what I had done. That I had killed the fusion. That I had killed it by making it fully monster as it began to absorb the dust and magic from the corpses it had created with its one, wide sweep. That I had looked into its eyes to determine when its soul had become fully monster, and then forced a Cooperative Connection on it, stealing that part of its soul away. My magic...it..."

His magic?

Cter looked up from her thinking. "Your magic?" Manny had stumbled into having to explain it. The stumble was painful though, and his voice had trailed off weakly. Cter had heard enough though through her thinking that she had a clue as to what it was. "You have sacrificed your magic, haven't you?" Sacrificed it by taking all of what made the Second Fusion monster and contained it away from its human half. An inversion of how the First Fusion was killed.

How he described the Second Fusion looking and feeling like it gained sentience was similar to how Cter had experienced it with the First Fusion. Two times the world had been lucky enough that there had been a powerful mage nearby to have killed the Fusions before they could become accustomed to their fused souls.

There wouldn't be a third time though, that Cter promised. Be it from the war or from it emerging where a Monster Mage wasn't present, there wouldn't be a third, lucky time for the world. It couldn't. I just could not!

"You've made all of yourself the Cooperative Connection, haven't you?"

Slowly and with fingers curling and uncurling, the Fifth Monster Mage reached for his hanging hood, grabbing at it only after managing to breathe in enough courage to take it off his head. The wind behind him fought against it, sending a huffed gust to try and push it back up again. He only managed to put his eyes into view.

"Singe my soul..."

But it was all that was needed.

"Manny..."

The face of the early adult had eyes sunken the same as they were when Cter had met him at Clinic Hill with Sund. Hollow and deep, speaking more than words could ever of what he had gone through. At the same time there was a glow to his eyes. A busy commotion that looked to drip like thick tears down his strong cheeks flush an even stronger red than what he had the last time Cter saw him.

Within the windows to his soul there was a white glow that Cter knew all too well. A white that overtook the color he was born with, leaving only his pupils as contrast in the snow-white fields. He could see through them, taking in every minute detail of Cter's changing expression. The small pupils danced around so fast Cter thought that they would leave a trail through the white.

"It's the same," exhaled the Fourth Monster Mage in disbelief on her own left hand. "But yours..." she tried to continue, but failed. Her white-fleshed fingers collected into a strained fist hard enough that they began to deform within the protective shell of barrier magic. "Yours is inside of you."

"No," said the Fifth Monster Mage with the overwhelming white of his eyes closing shut. His gloved hand again closed over the lip of his hood, pulling it back slowly. "Not all of it."

A startled flinch had the half-eaten stew flung out its bowl. Landing on its edge, the bowl rolled down the hill for a few lengths before the thickness of the grass toppled it over. It left the Fourth Monster Mage alone to make sense of the surge of emotions within her that became too much for her to hold in. Fear, sorrow, understanding, helplessness, mentorship, solidarity. All bubbled within her like an unwatched cauldron. All tugged her in different directions. Away from the young mage. Towards the young mage. She could not… She couldn't…

"Damn it..."

But she had to!

"No!" blurted Cter in the middle of one of her startled inhales at Manny pulling his hood back up over his head. She had to pay back that interruption with interest, but when she regained her breathing, she reached out with her left hand. "Don't." She met the pair of pupils as if they were her own eyes. "Let me see it."

It was easier to see a second time, but still it had Cter's aura flush with emotions. "All over?" she asked through them indicating down the Fifth Monster Mage's purple robe.

He nodded weakly.

"I see."

And how could she not?

Magical lines ran over the young mage's face like scar tissue, faded yet visible. A complex pattern that was more than the curved lines Cter had managed when she had used Dr. Sallus' memories, indiscernible to make out both where it was flowing and how it had been weaved. It did not seem to pay any mind to the young mage's facial features, instead going through the bridge of his nose and down across his blinking eyelid through his brow. Into his hair it went from his forehead, climbing up strands to survey where to go next.

Like the Royal Mage of Ice's hair there was akin to magical dandruff that fell off as the wind navigated through the disheveled fringe, but instead of flakes of icy magic there were flakes of white that instead detached from the strands involved in the complex pattern. Finally the pattern ran down his throat, expanding and contracting with each hard swallow the young mage swallowed as he felt each point Cter inspected him intensely at. The pattern disappeared down the purple collar with a slight glow to show that it still indeed continued.

"Like veins," commented Cter's tongue without her asking it to. She caught it with a disciplinary bite, but soon released it as she heard that it had spoken wrong. "No, not veins." Her head shook calmly. "They're not veins." She met Manny's eyes again. "They're chains."

His closed amid his calmer nod. "I'm keeping it inside of me." As he opened them again he found their reflection in the stew of the bowl he held. The reflection of the broth gave his eyes back some color, but not nearly enough as what he had lost. "And at the same time I am keeping it outside of me as well."

"Outside your soul." And of course if he could not use his soul he could not use any magic either. The Second Fusion within him was both fighting to break out of him and into him, which also explained why his aura was in a constantly excited state.

Had there been a sliver of its human part within the monster half Manny made a forced, stolen Cooperative Connection with, then it would have been able to use the Cooperative Connection with Dr. Sallus' memories. Same as how the First Fusion used Cter's carved-on Cooperative Connection to use barricade magic around her magical carvings so that she would not bleed to death. If the Second Fusion had gotten a hold of a mage sleeve that it did not have to keep from dying then who knows what type of magic it could have used!

Again, the world had been lucky twice already.

"I don't remember anything from when it happened," said Manny with a gingerly touch at his flush cheek. "The events that transpired I have only heard about. The events they told me didn't help me understand. They could not help me." His pupils looked down in shame. "So I...came to you. I came to you, and surrendered myself to the monsters."

He then pinched at his purple collar, lifting it up slightly. "Enough to become one." The pinch became a hard garb, squeezing tightly. "I don't remember." Viscous tears, diluted with the White Flesh, darkened the grabbed collar with small, oily streaks of white throughout. "But I want to forget."

He didn't remember…

"If only I could forget."

"Yes," nodded the Fourth Monster Mage with a glance at her left arm.

"If only you could forget."