Thinking whether or not Cter should give props to Sarbor has her standing rather awkwardly behind a sizable tree out of view of the young mage and the Monster Priestess. It did not take a lot to convince him to do as she asked, but that could mean that it would not take a lot for Frioke to get out of him that it was Cter that asked him to interject into the quiet meeting.

All that she needs though is a bit of time to get her third puzzle piece fitted correctly. It will be difficult, but she has saved up her emotions for this moment. For when she has to give the seventh mage his chance to help with the Barrier.

For her to free him from his duties.

As Frioke follows along with Sarbor back to where the encampments are outside of the forest, Cter emerges from behind her tree a few seconds later into the quiet glade where the sighs of Mt. Ebott do not reach.

In the middle of the clearing, beside what seems to be the same pot that he had next to him when he and Cter sat downhill from the two kings, sits Manny with folded legs and a thinking look to where Frioke and Sarbor had just disappeared into, and from which Cter appears from with a friendly wave of her sleeved hand.

"My robe," she explains to the shifting expression from thoughtful to suspicious while holding out the hem of said robe. It is frayed slightly from the thorny undergrowth, but that seems to have come in handy. "Slowed me down a bit."

"And Sarbor did not wait for you?" Manny asks with a bit of confusion among his suspicion. Still though he jumps slightly to the side to give room for Cter to join with him next to the pot simmering half-full of human-made stew.

"Frioke is needed in a hurry." Cter sits down on the pillow on the yellow grass opposite Manny. "Didn't he say so?" The fire that is simmering the pot is magical in nature, and feels like Frioke's. It should fade soon enough since she's left it alone.

When it does though there might be some sparking embers, so Cter should be aware so that the dry grass does not ignite. Last thing Manny needs now is to set ablaze another human encampment, even if just accidentally. "They did hurry straight past me on the way back with just a passing mention to keep you company, after all."

Manny's eyes narrow slightly, and he clenches his arms around his knees. "Guess it must be a monster matter then." He raises an inquisitive eyebrow. "Did you run into Sarbor on the way here?" His question is genuine, and touches quite firmly at Cter. Just by the softness of his eyes she can tell that he's trying to be understanding that Frioke had to head off in such a hurry, but that he still feels like it is unfair beyond measure.

"I did," continues Cter to lie without any regrets. She's repeated that it's been all for monsterkind enough for her to believe it. "And trust me when she had to leave for a very important reason."

That though was not a lie.

Just not the truth.

"Guess I shouldn't be surprised," the young mage sighs, defeated. "The days have become increasingly important with each one that has passed by here." He looks up over and between some of the tree tops. "Again, I shouldn't be surprised, since we're at Mt. Ebott." His eyes struggle to stay open while looking up, and eventually they come down to meet Cter. "I've only seen it at a distant distance and heard it spoken about with reverence about how important it is to us in Xoff. Now that I'm here though?" He spits some air. "There's no real magic to it."

Very bitter, the young mage is. Understandably so, but still. "It is more mundane up close than it is at a legend's distance away, yeah," Cter agrees while too struggling to keep her eyes open with her neck bent so far back up into the bright overcast beginning to swallow Mt. Ebott.

"That's about to change though, isn't it? Soon it'll be more magical within than anywhere else." She turns to Manny, taking notice of how the stripes and scars of White Flesh on his expression fold with his displeased furrow. He seems to have a good guess as to what she's about to say. "And while I'm here..."

The clench around Manny's legs loosen as he lifts up his right hand before him. The White Flesh cuts and slashes on his palm like thick hand lines, smearing like temperate clay as he runs his thumb over them.

"It will be a bit like when we first met at Clinic Village, won't it?" The Monster Mage pries slightly. "With the ice cubes I used to give out?" Just out of sheer habit she forms one in her sleeved hand, only noticing that she did when the reflection from it hits the corner of her eye. She holds it out for the young mage, who looks at it with a few calm breaths. "I'll make sure that it'll be the same, I promise."

That was also something Cter did not have to lie about.

Manny's eyes move the slightest, with him looking into the forest behind the held-out ice cube instead. "You might get something else other than me hoping that you're right if you ask Frioke about it later." He gestures slightly towards the magical fire underneath the pot between him and Cter. "She knows a bit more about what I can and can not do at the moment."

The fire has not yet started to crackle with embers, but Cter's still making sure to keep an eye on it. She just kept another, bigger, magical fire in check already today, so this one ain't no problem for her. "Even if she's deliberately dragged it out as long as she can."

There is a blend of birdsong that Cter is not too familiar with from the surrounding trees. She's heard it in the distance, mostly. A bit of it closer up when her earlier patrols took her near Mt. Ebott's beard, but never really as fully surrounded by it that she is now. Even in her other travels into Xoff she never really got time to just sit down and listen to the birds. She can now though.

For the last piece of her puzzle is just within her grasp.

And it won't slip away.

"Because she's not willing to let me go yet," says Manny to fill the silence that emerges as Cter listens to the surrounding birdsong. There is some impatience with his words as he's not fully sure if the Monster Mage understands it. The impatience seems to travel to the trees, and the birdsong stops and scatters. Up above, high above the glade, there is the silhouette of a bird of prey circling. It's the root cause of the scattered bird song, but Manny seems confident with leaving up to chance that Cter understands.

"I got it," answers the Monster Mage with a small roll of her head. "You're not the only two that are feeling the encroaching Barrier in the immediate future." She rolls the roll back and angles her head slightly up to take in the sun that manages through the bright overcast. "And judging by your reaction I'm guessing you too have decided not to follow with us into the Underground?"

His immediate, telling nod shows that it's been a decision he made a long while ago. "Yeah." What has him furrowing his brow is something that Cter accidentally let slip. "Me too?" he asks. "What do you mean by that?"

"So you're not in it together then?" The Monster Mage looks through the forest where Sarbor walked with Frioke. Her gaze is quick, and might just have had a blunt needle hitting his back from so far away. Not far enough away for the fire magic to start crackling though, interestingly enough. "You and Sarbor? You both came to tell me back in Jarasevo Castle after I had just arrived from my duties as a Royal Messenger. You're not together on that no more?" Not knowingly, that is.

"Well..." begins Manny while clenching his legs again. "He was supposed to be the seventh mage, so things that were meant for just his ears did not reach mine. Then when I suddenly became the seventh choice things became vice versa." He rests his chin on his knee with his scars of White Flesh deforming more than his tanned skin. "Besides, our reasons for not joining are different." His brow shoots up for a brief moment. "What with our reasons for wanting to join being different in the first place."

He has a point there, true. Cter was not surprised by the fact that the two drifted apart, but rather more intrigued by it.

Since they seemed to have done so without building a grudge between them.

Incredibly seldom from what Cter has experienced.

"And since you came here with him I'm gonna guess that you got to talking with him about his reason?" says Manny with ease to his guess. "I'm sure his are...good." Talking about his own is wrought with friction though. "I mean, his reasons for joining you down in the Underground actually had some weight to it. A chance to actually be considered. His skills as a doctor would too be needed with all the other humans that would join in. Did you remind him of that?"

Cter hadn't even entertained the thought. "Yeah," she still answered. "He apologized quite profusely for it. We'll manage though. Not as we hinged everything on him. Would have been nice, but ultimately it's his choice, and he's chosen not to."

That Cter had heard already though, and while it might have been wasted time since she already knew fully well how to best give him magic, and to boot that he was no longer the seventh mage, it was still something she felt was necessary. Had she asked him to lead her to Frioke and Manny immediately he would not have done that. "And you?" With Manny she also already has a solution. "What's your reason to not follow with us into the Underground?" But the less brute force she needs to use, the better.

The young mage shakes his head, his scars of White Flesh twisting like clay against his bundled-up knees. "It was just a bad idea from the beginning. For me, the one who's keeping the Second Fusion within his soul, to join with the monsters into the Underground is just..." The White Flesh twist even harder with Manny's defeated slump of his head. "Just childish."

He sighs with a sink to his shoulders.

"If I was to join with you in the Underground it would be the same as bringing in an oil-soaked rag as a holder for a lit candle. With the Barrier keeping in the magic that has been strong enough to influence human souls throughout three countries, and perhaps even beyond too given enough time, there is no telling if I will be able to keep the Second Fusion restrained against all that magic. The first lesson I had with Frioke to help me keep it under control it almost got loose, and the Underground is going to be like soup to the thin mist that Frioke has put me through to strengthen my containment of the Second Fusion."

The ice cube in Cter's sleeved palm glimmers with wonderful colors as she swirls it for a second before pinching it at two opposite corners to hold it up towards the hidden sun. "So shouldn't I be in the Underground as well?" Cter does not ask it in an accusing tone, but rather a curious one. To further show that she's only asking to know, she reaches over the simmering steam of the pot with the ice cube to give to Manny.

He takes it carefully, observing it. A gingerly poke from his thumb has it spinning half a turn. "You're different," he says factually. "The First Fusion is dead, whilst the Second Fusion is still alive. It's within me, in my soul, and I feel it being alive constantly. It is trying to escape, and me following into the Underground will give it the best chance it will ever get to escaping. How it will do I do not know." The colorful reflections from the ice cube paints his kin differently than it does his white scars. "But I do know that it will." He hands the ice cube back to Cter. "It's telling me as much."

That's...interesting.

The ice cube slides around in Cter's hand as Manny drops it in.

If it is telling him then that means that it is much more aware than Cter was...erhm...aware of. Perhaps she does not need to hear his reasons for not wanting to join after all if that's the case? If it is attracted to magic then Cter won't have any problem luring it out. Her magic will be the driest of puns to a Snowdrake.

"So that's what Frioke and you have been doing then?" Cter asks with a pat or two on the ice cube with a less-than-gingerly thumb. "Working together to contain the Second Fusion?"

"Up until I was chosen to be the seventh mage." Manny glances for a short moment at the ice cube then blinks away. "Then it became her trying to convince a stone to be soft." The analogy does not land well with Cter, and the quiet that follows tells that just as much as it shows. Manny lets a hand fall to point at the small fire underneath the pot.

"Suddenly I was ready when just the day before I still had things to learn, but was making good progress. I could tell that it was a jump for her too, but she did all she could to try and hide it from me." A slow breath he inhales through his nose. "I honestly can not tell who between the two of us it has been more exhausting for, this whole process. I'm… She feels that I'm her son."

She…

She does?

"Or at least that she is my parent, maybe? Grandchild and grandma?" Manny tries instead to feel if it sounds better to him. It...maybe does? With the white scars slashing at the strange angles as it does on his face it is hard to tell exactly what emotion he's furrowing. Cter is usually quite good at that after a while of cheating and feeling at both the aura and the expression, but with how both Manny and his scars have grown it's become harder for her. "In any case though, it's only been a week or so since she finally managed something with me." His fallen hand jerks slightly, a finger pointing.

And Cter's eyes widen.

"The...fire?" Frioke's fire? "That's yours?" The wide eyes quickly dry as they hang in disbelief locked on the small, weak flames struggling up the sides of the half-empty pot. "That's your fire magic, Manny?" It...it does explain why it has not yet begun to crackle and fade away, but if anything that only raises more questions.

None are which that Cter needs answered though, only if it is truly Manny's magic.

"No and yes," he answers with a tug to his lips that bares his unsure teeth. "It is my magic now, but it wasn't when Frioke first started it. I'm...fire watching, but not in the way us humans use the term." With a swift, simple motion he rolls up the arm of his Xoff-colored robe, exposing even smaller fires dotted around on his white scars.

"She began the fire with her magic, but she also used her magic on my White Flesh, and from that I have fueled the one underneath the pot. The tinder and the spark to ignite it she provided, while I have continued replacing the burnt logs, is the closest way I can explain it." He drags back the sleeve, covering up his arm again with the same uncomfortable furrow as Cter had worn years before. "It's mine now, since otherwise it would have stopped burning by now. That's how Frioke's been trying to get me to make magic again."

Right. "So she's been trying to go around the Second Fusion within you? That could work." And seems to have as well. "How much of the fire are you in control of?"

"Barely," says the young mage disappointingly. "It's all I can do to let it continue burning as it was already burning. A change, even making it smaller, it's too much for me." He looks to Mt. Ebott beyond the treetops. "She'll most likely tell you about it in more detail later today, I'm gonna guess. Or tomorrow since she had to run away to her urgent errand. She will want to have another lesson with me tomorrow too." He looks down again. "More for her to spend more time with me though, I'm sure of."

"I see." The Monster Mage's answer is more a reaction. The ice cube in her hand she lets dissipate into a small puddle which she shakes off, flicking a few drops onto the magical fire, causing a fizzle. Manny's frown becomes troubled, and he does not see Cter as she reaches into her cape to bring out her journal fastened on her hip.

It's only when he's managed to regain the fire that was quelled by the flicked-off drops that he notices what Cter has brought forth. She notices that he notices, and opens the book up to a page filled with feathers. "I've used these to write," she explains, letting the pages flip through underneath her thumb. "To write quite a lot, I should say."

The young mage does not seem convinced by that though. Not with what he sees. "Then why are the pages blank?" His question is suspicious, and understandably so. "Have you written somewhere else?"

"Yeah." Cter flips back the pages from the blank, unwritten ones to the pages with the feathers she have been saving up. From every other page she picks one to collect into a feathery, colorful bouquet. "Quite far away."

"Jarasevo?" guesses Manny timidly. "Or Soul's School?"

"Jarasevo."

"O...Okay."

Once her bouquet is gathered, with Manny watching with worry each one that she picks, the Monster Mage calmly closes her journal and fastens it back on her hip. "It's good to hear that Frioke's done good in helping you find another way to utilize magic." It will make Cter's process much easier. "You said she saw herself as your parent, but not you as her son?" The Monster Mage folds her sleeve up in a more calm manner compared to how the young mage did, with each fold of the purple fabric being neat and steady.

"Y-yeah, she does," nods Manny, stopping briefly as the purple fabric gives way to a harsh white on the upper of Cter's left arm. "I mean, it is what it feels like. She's been protective of me ever since I became the Fifth Monster Mage. It also feels like there are people tripping over themselves to declare themselves a part of my family ever since the First Monster Mage. Rasliela, dad, Frioke, and I'm sure Dr. Sallus would have done so as well had he been..." The young mage's eyes lock onto the White Flesh of Cter's left arm. "Alive."

"You're saying that Kallorean and his squad mate are alive? That is what you're feeling, yes?"

Manny nods again.

"Do you feel their magic? Either Kallorean's or his squadmate's?"

He shakes his head.

"Just the Fusion's?"

He nods.

"So that the two of them are still alive as the Fusion? That's what you're saying?"

"I..." The young mage falters with a hand thrown up in building frustration. "I don't know! It just...feels. Same as magic does. I haven't learned it. I don't want to learn it. I don't want to wield them as magic! They're..."

"No no, it's fine," calms the Monster Mage, if only because she doesn't want any of Manny's emotions mixing in with the Second Fusion's. For her plan to work though she needs more of her own in order to make sure that it does not bind to her soul. The First Fusion that she carries in the water must not mix with the Second Fusion.

Not yet, anyway.

The drop of oil she carries with her though?

But for the Second Fusion to jump onto that, the oil needs to feel like a real soul. It needs emotions. Her emotions.

"C...Cter..."

Which she has saved up for these last few days.

"W-What are you..."

As the emotional ink drains into the White Flesh of her left arm, the harsh white becomes streaked. Each one of the colors from the Soul Rainbow injects into her arm, stirring. Like the drop of oil in her soul's water, the emotional ink does not mix with the White Flesh. The streaks instead drift silently, twitching and turning like smoke amid quiet wind.

A wry, thin smile appears on the Monster Mage's lips as she observes the emotional ink for a few seconds. It worked! Quicker and blunter than Manny rolled up his robe's arm, Cter drags off her sleeve as the emotional ink travels down underneath the inert leather. On each finger the colors gathers, with the yellow resting in her palm. With ease she forms it into the shape of a soul.

A red soul.

Same as hers.

"...Cter?"

Yes, Manny's right. He is absolutely right.

She has no time to wallow in her memories.

"...Cter!"

When the final piece of her puzzle is finally at hand!