"'Choo!"
An engraved handkerchief was offered by a large, white-furred hand to the Fourth Monster Mage. "Here you go, Cter." Along with a heartfelt apology. "Please forgive that the negotiations took longer than expected. We should have brought with us some logistics as well."
Cter would have told her thanks had her sinuses not felt like they were filled to the point that they felt sore to the touch. Instead she bowed her head as deeply as she could after taking the handkerchief and making a mess of it underneath the hiding shadow of her wide-brimmed hat.
It took a few loud, uncouth, and snotty blows into the expensive cloth before she could breath through her nose again. The smell of morning dew still hung thick in the dense forest her king was leading her through. The undergrowth was just as dense as it was on the other side of the glade which she had entered from where she had arrived as a prisoner.
"It is good to have you back, Cter."
Although with what it meant for her to be free she would have chosen to stay as a prisoner had she been given the choice. That she had to sleep outside under the stars with the cold, moist night air filling her lungs with each increasingly stuffed breath she would have done a hundred times over if it meant that the two kings would have managed to come to another form of consensus between them.
What Cter feel asleep to and what she woke up to were two completely different conversations which she could tell by the color of the magical fire she had ignited for warmth for Manny and her. What she had heard whilst asleep must have been enough to either enrage or confuse her soul, for the magical fire that she fell asleep too was calm and gentle, whereas the magical fire she woke up to was crackling and flickering.
"It is good to be back, my King."
What she saw and heard of the two kings sitting underneath the lonesome aspen tree on the hilly glade was the opposite of good. As night rolled in they were still continuing to debate harsh words, but with respectful voices. The magical fire of King Asgore's to illuminate between them had their argumentative gestures casting long, theatrical shadows as their conversations ebbed and flowed from one king's side to another.
There was desperation between them, and that was both easily heard and seen. Cter wasn't even sure if she got any sleep or not. She could just as well have been listening throughout the night to the kings being furious at the situation they had found themselves in, but never at the other.
"Allow me to apologize in advance for the journey home, and at the same time ask you to please enjoy each minute of it."
Even though the two kings were negotiating for their different sides in a war that was born out of something that could never be discussed with, both with the Second Fusion and the ravaging fear and turmoil of human emotions that followed it, they still spoke like friends. Perhaps even the strongest and most important part of a friendship.
The part which all promise that they would do, but with only a few living up to that promise. The promise of being hard towards a friend because they were making a mistake, even if it was a willing one.
"Anything that brings me home will be a journey I will enjoy, my King."
In all honesty, that the negotiations were not heard by more was a tragedy. The warmth between them still held strong against the blizzard-like cold of what they had to say to the other. Threats, ultimatums, names of those that had died, and duty for their respective people were all summoned against the other one. The king of the other side of the war.
The enemy.
The enemy that threatened the people the king's duty swore to protect. Yet still they trusted the other king enough to sleep underneath the same tree once they did. Yet still the conversation began anew as the sun rose after only an hour's or so rest for the wicked kings.
"I am glad to hear that, my Monster Mage."
There was a mellow nostalgia that rose along with the sun for the two kings. There was laughter, and equal part crying. As kings they knew that it would be the last time they would be able to talk like friends, but as friends it was the same as all other times they had talked as kings. There would be a long, long time before they could be as friends once more, but the bond they had was so strong that they knew that they would still be friends after it all. Despite all of what had and would happen, they would still be friends.
"I am glad to hear that you are glad, King Asgore."
No soldier would have believed what Cter then saw. No Royal Mage would have believed what Cter then saw. Nor a Monster Mage or a Royal Councilor. After a full day and a full night's negotiations to find an end to the war that should not have been, the two kings embraced each other. They clung at the other's back to pull closer and to not let go.
They laughed, to begin with, but which immediately crumbled into joint sobs that carried their sorrows down the glade and towards the morning sun rising curiously to surround the two kings and illuminate that the grass and leaves around them were felling tears just as thick as what rolled down their skin and fur-covered cheeks respectively.
"You have been away for quite some time even for you, I can tell. You have forgotten completely that you can speak with me the same as with your fellow Monster Mages."
That Cter was given a dry handkerchief by one of the kings after the fact only had the beauty of the situation sink in with her after she had ruined it beyond even the capabilities of Fang Shuey to clean it. King Asgore hadn't dried himself of his tears that he fell for his friendship with the Xoff king.
He had let them be with him, let them ruin his groomed fur for the friend he would not come to meet again as a friend. He said to remember inside their hearts the joint laughter the two had shared, and kept the tears of their joint sorrow outside on him.
"That has never been the case, my King."
Nothing else had to be said after the two kings had let their embrace fade away. When they decided in unison to return to their duties as kings. When the Xoff king turned to walk into the forest where Cter and Terri had exited from, Manny had stood up without any prompting. He had given Cter a long look from within his pulled-up hood, but no words before he walked away from her and joined the Xoff king to disappear into the dense forest.
Cter had followed with her eyes through the forest until her attention was taken by her Monster King reaching for the used bowls and empty pot of stew the two Monster Mages had eaten from. His smile at her was warm, and his hug after he had sorted the dishes into a large sack was even warmer. Cter had missed the touch of his fur. She had missed the gentle, comforting nature of his aura.
"Then I am glad that you still remember as much."
It still comforted while Cter walked behind her king and the large sack of heavy dishes that he carried over his shoulder. That he had strength left in his shoulders to carry himself was unbelievable to Cter, and that he had enough to also carry with him the cumbersome sack filled with heavy cast iron pots that seemed to do all they could to escape from their hemp-woven prison was just so...inspiring to see.
"So am I, my King."
Despite that though… Despite proof that King Asgore was strong enough to carry this burden and to be enough of a Monster King necessary to see this tragic war through, Cter had still offered to carry the hemp sack for her king with either stasis magic or gravity magic. Either would have been fine for her. Of course the Monster King politely declined the offer. Of course he told her that she had gone through enough already and that she should regain her strength now that she was back home with the monsters again. He needed her for what was to come. He needed his Fourth Monster Mage.
"Sir Gerson will be waiting for us at the end of this forest with our transport home. He wasn't the keenest in letting me travel to the glade alone, but he was not going to argue against my choice once I made it. Not when the war has progressed like it has."
And while Cter understood that it was King Asgore being his usual, generous self. While she knew that it was him taking the weight from those around him so that they can be strong enough to help, there was a dark thought at the back of her head because of it. In the half-asleep state that she had been in during the night she had heard as the negotiations came to an end.
That the tired from the two kings hadn't been because they needed sleep, but that they were reaching the end of what their friendship could hold together. Whether it meant that the two kings were prioritizing their own friendship over a resolution to the war or if it meant that the two were using the limit of their friendship as a limit to when their negotiations would degenerate into bad faith, Cter did not know. It did not matter either as to exactly why it was the case, only that it was the case.
"I wouldn't know, Asgore."
For what the Monster King agreed upon in the end wasn't a resolution to the war that played to the monsters' favor. He did not find a resolution to the war that left monsterkind with something positive. True, he was negotiating from a place without any real advantages to his side.
He had with him the Fifth Monster Mage he was willing to part with for the trade of the Fourth Monster Mage, but it had become clear to Cter that Manny had been given his Monster Mage title as a way to give the veneer of the negotiations being fair. Perhaps it was Manny's idea to become the Fifth Monster Mage for that reason?
Perhaps he was asked to become the Fifth Monster Mage and he could read between the lines as to why he was offered to become one? In any case though he had probably already shed that title by the time he stepped foot onto the forest path leading back to the human convoy where his grandmother was. Manny wanted to be a Royal Mage, not a Monster Mage, after all.
"And in a way I would like to keep it that way, if possible. In this critical time we will be needing as many views as possible to navigate monsterkind out of this...predicament. Toriel and I need all our Royal Councilors for what is up ahead this long, steep hill we need to lead our people through. We have failed them this far, and I need your help to prevent that monsterkind loses more than peace."
Even considering how everything was stacked against the Monster King though, what he agreed upon was not something Cter could agree upon too. Be it because she hadn't seen anything of the war or be it because she harbored anger and resentment against her captors, but to her, King Asgore did not do enough for his people. He did not do enough for monsterkind when he had the chance to leverage his friendship with the Xoff king. He could have done more. He should have done more. He was weak.
"I will do whatever it is you need me to do, my King. I will protect monsterkind with all of my heart and soul. Forever, and always."
And did the Xoff king play into that weakness? Did he use his friendship with King Asgore's to get the outcome he wanted? Was it all planned to begin with for this meeting to be the turning point where the war could finally be decisively decided?
Cter did not know any details of it, but if the monsters had managed to hold out for almost a full year against the combined might of the two human armies driven by primal fear flanking Monster Country to then force negotiations then surely that must have been at least some type of leverage that King Asgore could have wielded?
He could have played into that frustration and hung what the humans wanted like a carrot on a string, yanking it just out of reach unless he got some promises from the human king. Promises that were followed up with guarantees. As the two kings hugged though, there were no guarantees at all for monsterkind.
There was no handshake to make it official and to bind the absent promises. There were witnesses to the event with Cter and Manny who both went along with either party, sure, but there wasn't even anything written down!
"It is not far now. Just a bit more to walk. Let me know if I am not providing you enough clearance to easily traverse this path, okay? Manny was quiet throughout when we arrived yesterday, and when we emerged out into the glade I found his purple robe covered with leaves and bits of twigs. I had to pat him clean before the humans could see him lest they came to think that we had been treating him poorly."
There weren't any set dates mentioned, let alone agreed upon. There weren't any locations discussed. There weren't any numbers discussed. There wasn't anything substantial agreed upon at all. There was only the vague acceptance that something would happen sometime, and the two seemed fine with it. Like how…
"I'd rather talk about my time at Soul's School when we all are gathered together if I could. I wouldn't like to repeat it, if I could ask for that, my King?"
Like how friends were. Kingly friends making vague plans for their people because they trusted each other as friends. Trusted that the other would keep his word exactly how it was said. A friendship so deep that it had King Asgore being passive about the aftermath of the truth of the Cooperative Connection since he trusted his friend that deeply.
It should have been beautiful to Cter that there was a friendship that seemed to go even deeper than that which she had with Idyll, but when the first real display of that deep friendship was when the future of a major war between humans and monsters was to be decided to bring it to a conclusive and clean end, it was difficult for her to see the single, beautiful rose amid the thorny bushes covered in monster dust.
Not sparsely like the ones in the Royal Garden where pricked sprinkles of monster dust were common, but completely showered in monster dust like a hefty layer of powdered sugar on one of Barbeqa's royal desserts.
"Of course, Cter. I did not mean for it to sound like I was prying for you to talk about Soul's School, but I can see how you would feel that it was. Forgive me, I did not manage a lot of sleep. Not an excuse, but an explanation, I hope."
Damn it, what was Cter thinking? Why was she harboring such thoughts against her own king? If she was upset with him for not ending the war with words when she hadn't been a part of it, then how would it then be for him then? Him who's every choice meant death, and all he could do was choose which one would die and which one would live.
Same as how Rasliela could point on a map and monsters would die, so could King Asgore point on a map and hopefully monsters would have been saved. He could not point on the entire map though. He could not make a choice that would save everyone. He could only make a choice that would save the most.
"I'm… Forgive me, King Asgore. I'm...I'm tired. Maybe I shouldn't talk more until we're back home at Jarasevo."
Like how Terri had let Cter walk into his questions the day before, so did Asgore let the Monster Mage walk into his aura to show that he was sincere with his apology. Amid the tender apology there was a sense of a distant lack of hope. It might have just slipped out of the Monster King without him thinking about it, but as Cter walked into his aura, it was as if she had ran flat into a wall.
She recoiled back as the Monster King's burdens had filled her soul, making it as heavy as a boulder within her. Each point on the map that meant that those that he hadn't pointed to would suffer. Each weighted decision that was done in the name of the many, but to the cost of the few. And Cter had just…
She'd just…
"Cter?" came a concerned question while the large sack scrambled from its heavy content jostling with deep, metallic rings.
She'd just thought of him as betraying the monsters! She had just thought of him as weak for not putting a definitive end to the war! She had just been angry at him! She had just–
"Cter," came with a large, steadying hand that pushed down securely on the Fourth Monster Mage's quivering shoulder. Mere two finger on the snow-white hand were enough to hold the shoulder calm with the rest wrapping around the frail upper arm with gentle kindness.
Weak sobs reverberated through the Monster Mage's body as if her bones had been struck by a hammer. Tears descended from the wide shadow hung over the Monster Mage's face onto the snow-white hand, dotting it darkly. "I don't want to think like this," rolled unsteadily with a faint, strained exhale out the shadow of the wide-brimmed hat. "I don't want to have these thoughts. I don't want to think like I do. It's changed. It's changed so much! I just want–"
The weak and faint words quieted to a muffled mumble as the Monster King pulled his Fourth Monster Mage closer to him, caressing her head against the warm and comforting fur on his chest. A soft thumb swept under the weeping, forest-green eyes, drying the cheeks that had begun to flush. "You're home, Cter," reminded King Asgore with a weighty calm to his voice that slowly settled over Cter like a blanket. "You're home with us again."
She felt the grip of her hat lifting from her head. The hat which she had been given to hide the fact that she was a monster. The hat which she had been given to display that she was human. It had been so tight on her head for so long. It had echoed her thoughts within it and had not let them steam away. Not let them flow from her mind and dissipate into the air and be gone with the wind.
The small hole her crystal brooch had made had not been enough to vent away it all. "Thank you." The Monster King was lifting it off her head. "I've missed you..." He was taking away what had imprisoned her as a human, and was bringing her back as a monster. "I'm so–" He was pulling her brooch with it. "Ow ow ow ow ow ow! Wait!" Tugging at her hair like a ravenous fork yanking into a bowl of spaghetti. "Stop! Stop!"
"Oh golly!" flustered the Monster King with his large hands fumbling with trying to gracefully angle the hat so that the crystal brooch could untangle itself from the small hole it had poked loose. "If I...no, wait, I should–" Needless to say though, the needleless Monster King only made it worse with his flustered attempts and large fingers.
Leaving the Monster Mage struggling between saving her hair and going against the will of her Monster King.
And laughing freely throughout it all.
"No, not like that! The other way!"
So earnest in his clumsiness.
"No- Ow! Ow ow ow! Other way!"
Yet so stubborn to get it done.
"Behind...and through...and...no!"
So much like a monster.
"Yes, no, wait, no!"
She was home again.