Thunder from clear skies. A collapsing mountain. Roar from an unknown, god-like animal. A fallen star crashing into the ground.

Whatever the humans thought of the loud, explosive, and chime-like sound which came to be at Soul's School they were sure to come looking for it.

"Fluffbun..."

If not for the immense sound then for the incredible display of color and intricate symbols that turned the dead of night briefly into the alive of day with its many sparks and works of fire.

"If that doesn't alert them then I don't think anything will."

The two Royal Messengers stood abreast in the fading hue of their combined magic that envied the stars with its brilliance. Neither took a step for the better part of a minute as all that came after their display were darker than dark. There was no different between Cter closing her eyes and keeping them open. The only way she was able to tell the two apart was her eyes drying from the encroaching cold by the early spring night.

"Maybe we did a bit too much? Shone brighter than the emergency flare of magic we agreed on."

Cter's eyes narrowed at the fire magic she ignited with a snap of her sleeved finger which she then flicked down at an unlit campfire she had built with some of the firewood she could savage from the campus storerooms. She had brought a chair to sit next to it too, with Aajja bringing with him some of the least-ruined mattresses he found inside the dormitories. The two seated themselves respectively, waiting.

"We did not shatter any windows," answered the Monster Mage while squinting at the bright of the fire. "So if anything we could have done more to make sure they saw it."

She was confident that they had done enough though. There was the faint echo of the magical works of fire from one of the mountains beyond the nearest forest, so there was a good chance that at least someone connected to the human army would have noticed.

If the echo managed through the forest to the mountain and then back again, then by golly people would have had to be deaf not to notice. Her inkling to put up a floor of barrier magic underneath the overtly signaling display that put her display at Fenkeep Castle to shame was a good hunch of hers proven by the faint, distant echo.

She had already had her ears bleed due to magic once, after all.

A sturdy clink of glass had Cter looking down from the many stars above twinkling in whispers about their jealousy of the magical display that had exploded in color underneath them. She found the Griffon Commander inspecting a bottle in his talons, with the flicker and licks of the campfire casting dancing reflections of the sloshing liquid inside as he turned it around and around in his grip.

"And you're sure this isn't frost damaged?" he asked with a tone that had his monocle and hanging gular painting a rather-pretentious air about him. A quick claw stabbed at the top of the cork with a confidence and familiarity that told that he had done it many, many times before. "You did say that there was frost on the desk you took it from." A distinct pop bounced around the campus. "Doesn't look too damaged though."

He could tell just by looking? "Well it was inside the desk, not on top of it." Cter jumped her chair a bit closer to the campfire. "The drawer I had to pull at with a bit of violence though." Once closer she held out her palms to the fire. "To be perfectly honest I don't even know why I took it." She rubbed them together for more warmth. "I don't even feel like drinking it."

A rather incredulous expression took over the Griffon Commander. "And you say this after I uncorked it?" There wasn't anger in his voice. It was more confusion in it, and a slight shimmer in his aura that implied some worry to boot. "Did you buy it as a gift for someone here?"

"No," said Cter with a shake of her head. Through the large caskets filled with books arranged like the logs of a house next to the campfire she stared at the main building of the campus. "If anything it was the opposite." The sign which she had tried to do the same as she had done with the many titles that laid unsorted in the many caskets looked slightly ominous in the dim light from the small campfire.

Even with a dictionary and a thesaurus in hand it was impossible for her to change the letters of the sign to something that did not imply monsterkind or magic of any sort.

'Soulay's Academy for Humanities and Religions for the Betterment of a Cad Ed Minks Mutts and Humanity' was the closest she was able to manage with the tools she had available for her, and that would have only raised questions about it.

No, the only choice she really had was to remove the letters of the brass sign spelling out about monsterkind and magic. Letters that were tucked in the large caskets with a great amount of effort. Her hope was that she only had to show that some of the caskets contained just books for the arriving human army to believe her and help her send them back to Jarasevo.

Which was the first part of her plan.

Half of the books that she had packed into the caskets were that of books that told of recipes and other non-magical trivia and stories. Those she had used magic to change the titles of to look as if they were magical books. Which they arguably were since she had applied magic to them, but that was neither here nor there.

Part two of her plan was to then replace the important books in the Jarasevo library with those of the changed, inconspicuous books to again bring things back to zero for the next cycle. The more she was able to remove magic from the humans the better both the monsters and the next cycle of human magic would be. There was the crux of the books about magic still present in the rest of Hjearta and in Xoff as well, and that she had not yet figured out a good solution for.

She had one solution for it.

But it was not a good one.

"It was what Professor Leraull offered me when I visited here for the first time as a Monster Mage," Cter remembered that she was explaining about. "So...I don't know. Just felt like I should bring it with me."

A sympathetic look showed understanding in the Griffon Commander's eyes. "What with you trying to leave this place as inert as possible, excuse my wording." With the cork still on his claw he found it difficult to decide to put it back into the bottle.

"I may not be Professor Leraull, but I would sure like to share a glass with you, if possible, Cter. Maybe not in celebration of your ascendancy as a Monster Mage, but perhaps as two Royal Guards doing what is necessary for monsterkind. Not good, perhaps, but necessary." He waited with patience for Cter to answer with the bottle held at a slight angle towards her.

It sounded fair to her ears, however… "I did not think ahead enough to bring with me any glasses to drink from, so–"

More hollow clinks of glass interrupted her. The Griffon Commander produced from within the plumage of his wings two thick-bottomed glasses which he held between two talons. "University dorms," he explained before Cter could ask where and how he found them. "For after the exams were done, is my guess. As for why I took them..." From his other wing he produced a dusty bottle of wine. A smile narrowed his eyes from below. "Again, university dorms."

His ears flattened though.

"Only desperate, exam-tired university students would ever think of drinking wine from these types of glasses." His sigh again had him looking as pretentious as his title and outfit would have him be. "Good thing I have the dean with me instead." As he poured he answered another one of Cter's question before she could ask. "Yes, I cleaned them."

It wasn't the question she wanted to ask first though, but it was one she would have asked in due time, albeit too late for it to have any real effect. No, what she wanted to really ask was something she had almost forgotten completely about. "J43?" she said as she was handed the cleaned glass dirtied up by Professor Leraull's bottle. "Found anything there?"

"No," answered Aajja with a small shake to his head so that he would not spill when pouring for himself. "With how small that room was I would be surprised if anything could actually be lost there. It is..." He swirled his drink. "It is not really a place to stretch out, is it?"

"Nope," stated Cter directly. "That it was not." She had said the same to Terri the last time she was at the empty campus. It was a point worth repeating, she felt. "Helped me with making it through the courses though as I would rather spend my time anywhere but in my student room." Timidly, Cter touched her lips at the amber liquid turned more orange by the reaching flames from the campfire. It did not taste as if damaged by frost like Aajja had told, but it did taste different than when Professor Leraull had served it. She had her guesses as to why.

As well as the solution to it.

"Oh!" perked Aajja with his ears rising up at the sound of ice cubes hitting the thick glass. "You wouldn't mind?" he asked with his own held out towards the Monster Mage's left hand channeling a bright-blue glow among a windy pattern of dots of snow. "Two, please?"

Cter obliged after a nod, reaching over and forming two ice cubes which the Griffon Commander ordered. "Let me know if you want any more," she said to his thankful bow which he held for a bit longer than usual. It caught Cter's eye, but not as much as the rainbow-like glimmer that bobbed up and down in the amber-poured glass.

"Golly," said Aajja with a small squint as the glimmer streaked across his eyes. "This I didn't expect." With a curious narrow of his eyes he transitioned the posh grip around the base of his glass to a careless hold at its rim with just two of his talons held vertically. Another swirl had the two ice cubes floating around like pieces of stained glass in a deep sunset, casting a theater of sparkling color over his plumage.

"It is as if you captured the display we did earlier inside the ice magic." An impressed smile met curious eyes at his cheeks, pushing them wide with his raising feathers. "This something you just figured out now without even thinking?" He peered over the flames of the campfire at Cter's drink, humming a thought to himself. "You didn't do it for yours though."

No, that she didn't.

To boot, she did not realize that she did to Aajja either. She gave him his ice cubes out of habit. She gave them like she had always done.

God was it ever such a long time though…

"Singe my soul," the Monster Mage exhaled as a sigh into her left palm. "I...I used to give those out as a gift of sorts to those I met in my first year as a Monster Mage." Her sigh turned to fog as it settled in her hand, pouring out between her fingers. Before all of the fog could escape though she clutched her left hand, sucking in the dancing dots of snow into her clutched hand.

"As a quick and simple way to show them that I indeed was a Monster Mage, I guess." The cube she formed she let sit calmly in her palm, with its non-calm colors spreading out dynamically from the changing shapes of the campfire flames. Crackling sparks from the wood made brief flashes of brilliance reminiscent of her crystal magic.

The reverse of which was what helped Cter make her crystal magic so brilliant.

"During my first visit to Clinic Hill I remember giving Manny's father a temporary Cooperative Connection so that he could make an ice cube for his son and set him on a path to become a mage. The children of Clinic Hill were more magically competent compared to other places as Clinic Hill and its accompanying village sit between Mt. Ebott and Mt. Ymmet, but Manny parents had moved in shortly before he was born, so they did not have much in term of magic to show for him."

Cter rotated the ice cube by its corners between her fingers. "It's..." Her words failed her, and she trailed away into a furrowed expression.

"It is something that feels like you actually helped someone," Aajja helped finish for Cter. He looked into his drink and the two sparkling ice cubes. "I'm sure the most stranger of monster that has never heard of you and neither you of them could read that from your aura." The Griffon Commander had to move his drink over the vast chasm of his gular before he could take a sip of it.

"Perhaps the soldiers will notice it as well." His eyes closed and a soft wave of relaxation flowed through him, causing his plumage to look like it was melting. "There is a precious sense to it, Cter. A genuine nostalgia and a complexity where I can both sense the Fourth Monster Mage who's mission as a Royal Messenger has dulled her aura's luster, but with the dullness welcoming even more the joy that dullness has pushed away."

A focused inhale was followed by his eyes opening up slowly. "You're still doing good for monsterkind, Cter. Still doing good for the relationship between humans and monsters which your title as Monster Mage is about."

She sighed deeply. "Yes, I know. But...and all that." A contemplative glance she let fall onto the many caskets faintly lit by the campfire.

"You're right about it being complex though. Monsters have never really done well with complex. What has been complex has been made simple by magic, whereas humans take complexity as a staple of something to overcome. We are helping monsterkind in a very human way." The sip that followed tasted more bitter than the one before despite Cter having allowed the magical ice cubes to melt as normal ones. "And on top of that I've decided to make it even more complex too."

The Griffon Commander shared Cter's glance towards the many wooden caskets. "I won't lie and say that I understand fully what you are doing and why you've decided to." He too took a second sip. "And hopefully you approaching them with the initiative to have sorted through the books from Soul's School will be enough for them to trust you in having done just that."

"I did," Cter was quick to comment. She met Aajja's look with a loose shrug. "I just won't tell them how I have sorted them, is all." Just before the rim of her glass touched at her lips for a third time she angled it away for a quick addendum. "It's not lying."

Technically.

"I won't argue that," said Aajja with a claw tapping at the side of his drink. A few leaping crackles from the campfire came close to his feathers as he disappeared briefly in thought. "It might be a bit petty of us to do so, but..." The reflection of the campfire in his dark eyes wobbled slightly as he looked down his side with his wing raised. He patted down some of the more looser scrolls so that they did not hang too much out. "Again, a petty response since the humans have been true to the Xoff king's word."

Cter scoffed out her nose. "For the most part." More than once had it been necessary for her and Aajja to follow along the surviving monsters from a village being escorted by a human squad who were quite dismissive of the duty. Once they reached a point of convergence where they met up with a bigger contingency that was big enough to result in too big a mess if anything were to happen Cter felt comfortable enough to continue with her and Aajja's mission.

Although perhaps less uncomfortable was a better phrase about it.

A silence grew between the two which blossomed for a long enough while that the Griffon Commander felt it necessary to reach with his long tail over to grab another log from the pile next to the caskets. A crispy sizzle emerged from the fire as the flames feasted quickly on the rugged bark covered in dry moss and fern. "Are you going to tell the others about your plan?" he asked through the brief pillar of smoke with embers mixed into it.

Hiding behind that brief smoke sprinkled with embers the Fourth Monster Mage tapped her thumb on the rim of her glass. With her having let her aura leak out like a keg without a tap there was really no way for her to lie to Aajja at that point. At that point he was probably just as keen on her emotions as Idyll or the other Royal Councilors.

She sighed.

"I haven't decided yet."

"Which itself is a telling decision, isn't it?" thinned out the smoke and embers to reveal Aajja's focused gaze through his monocle and with a slight crease in the plumage on his forehead. "If you believe that you have to think about it to make a decision, that is." He reached for another log with his tail, but Cter shook her head at it.

She felt that her seat was hot enough already.

"The less that know about it, the better," Cter began with a lean forward closer to the campfire. "Or the fewer, if I'm to be correct about it." She swiped at her nose. "In a way I want it both to be a legacy for the future, but I also want it to be my legacy of sorts. The legacy of the Monster Mage who was not connected to the Monster Royals. The legacy of the Monster Mage who became one by finding a deeper depth to the human magic which governed her cycle."

Her left arm was raised.

"The Monster Mage who gave up her arm for monsterkind, and not just her soul." It fell down with another sigh that seemed to curse at her. "So much has been focused around me and what I have found and what I have done, so why shouldn't the legacy that's left behind be mine then? Shouldn't it be the Monster Mage who everything seems to revolve around that leaves behind the legacy of her cycle?"

A few blinks passed by the Griffon Commander before he grabbed another log and placed it onto the campfire. "I trust you," he said through the emerging pillar of smoke and embers. "But if I am to be honest I believe that you are doing the opposite of what our mission is, I'm afraid." The Griffon Commander waited for the smoke to thin out before continuing. There was a concerned angle to his eyebrows which narrowed his eyes from above.

"Our mission is to make the individual worried for the betterment of the all. What you are doing is to make the individual feel more secure." He motioned to Cter so that there wouldn't be any doubts. "And what I worry is that it implies that there will be more worry for all."

To quell any resulting doubts he also raised his glass towards Cter. "You are not going to make it worse for monsterkind consciously. You're a Monster Mage and you have dedicated your life, soul, and your entire left arm to us. You're not going to do anything against us, that's not who you are."

Cter agreed. "And it is just that it feels like the inverse of our mission that I am hesitant to bring others into this plan of mine. Would it result in more damage done if it does imply that it will be worse for everyone else if what I do makes it better for which is in front of me instead of which is beyond the horizon? It's beyond the horizon I want to make better, but it can only begin if I put my foot in front of me."

The large gular bounced gently with the Griffon Commander's nod. "There was a saying that Ustit used to say that was similar but pertained to lock-picking. Unfortunately I can't remember that right now."

"You there!"

The half-terrified shout did not faze the Griffon Commander. Nor did the many varied, yet all-hurrying footsteps distract him from the long sip he took of his drink.

"Maybe one of them will know of it," suggested Cter with her head tilted towards the squad of humans that were approaching unsure whether to draw their weapons or not.

"Perhaps," replied Aajja after a shiver from his drink. Through his monocle he looked at the group of human approaching.

"Although my guess is that they will have questions they want answered first."