One day.

"Just one more day."

One more day until it will all come together.

"Just one more day until I don't get to enjoy this warmth no more."

Cter looks up from the dark of her hair matted down her forehead and past the slowly heaving feathers and fur to the bendy neck angled upwards like a stretching flower. Through the large, hanging pouch are splotches of dark. They are the clouds floating quietly across the mostly blue sky on this last day of freedom for the monsters, except for one. Aajja's monocle which he took off not too long ago, as well as the chain attached to it, are visible too inside his pouch on this sunny day.

The last day.

Sounds of melancholy commotion going on at the bottom of the small hill does not seem to reach the griffon's ears folded back and down, and if it does then he is doing his all to ignore them. Despite it just being one more day left he looks quite serene bathing in the warm Xoff sun. Cter can feel the serenity radiating from his plumage and fur just as much as she can the heat that he seems to collect as much as he can while still, well, can.

But it all pales against that which is radiating from within Cter.

"Take as much of it in as you can, Aajja," she advocates with a false air of calm in her words. "Although I'm not sure if it is on the positive side that today is a beautiful, sunny one." There is a pause as the churning in the dense drop of oil that has now been sinking for four days makes itself known once more to her. It wants more. It demands more! "Would've been easier to leave it behind should it had been gray, boring overcast."

It greedily takes in the emotions Cter gives it. The magic she injects into herself. Blue is what it gets this time, and the soapy color quickly fades from the White Flesh as Cter allows the Second Fusion to consume it. She needs it alive for a bit longer. She needs to kowtow to its needs for just one more day.

"I am tempted to agree," replies Aajja without turning his head or opening his eyes, but with his eyebrows raising high to coincide with his encouraging tone. "And this might be going against the doctrine of doing our all to leave as much as we can behind us, but I don't want you to fly around on cold plumage down in the Underground."

His peach-colored pouch tints the blue sky as he turns his bendy neck down towards Cter for a smile with closed eyes. "I'm gathering up as much of the sun's warmth as I can in my feathers." They all raise around Cter like self-inflicted goose bumps. "They're magical too, after all."

Yeah, that they're are. Cter is well aware of that. Although maybe not much the ones she has emptied of her emotional ink, the latest of which she's dropped into the plumage all around her, hiding it among the other feathers loosened by Aajja plucking himself. The Second Fusion has had quite the veracious appetite while within the drop of oil, so there is more than just one inert feather that Cter's drained emotional ink from. That Manny's been carrying it around like this for years on end is just…

Even with it most likely being more aware within the drop of oil inside of Cter as it was with Manny actively suppressing it, still it must have been horrible for the young mage. He would have been a fantastic mage had he not been forced to act as its jailer.

At least he'll do much good as the seventh mage.

"I don't like being ordered to sit back instead of helping out down there." Mostly because Cter can see clearly even through the tinting of Aajja's chin pouch that the monsters are struggling, both physically and emotionally, to pack up everything for the very last leg of their journey. Partly too that it has been possible for her to disguise feeding the Second Fusion by keeping busy with magic. She has been injecting emotional ink into her White Flesh thrice already during the morning which she was asked to awake early only to be asked to save her strength for tomorrow.

To save her strength for the Barrier.

"You're to not only help raise the Barrier, but you're also to give the rest of the seven mages enough magic for them to be able to help you raise said Barrier, Cter," reminds Aajja rather casually. "I should really ask you to stop talking, that's how much you should be resting up."

His large pouch whips as he turns his head back towards the sun.

"But there would only be a net loss since I would have to argue with you about that for quite a while before you'd finally accept it." His wings stretch slightly. "That you'd go and get a hell of a fever just a few days before the Barrier is to be raised pretty much had the Monster Royals wanting to wrap you up in a blanket and keep you separate from everyone else."

"It faded the evening after," says Cter with a shrug that's a bit too loose to be natural. She knows fully well why the fever began and why it faded, but no way that she can tell anyone the truth about it.

That she took the Second Fusion away from Manny would be enough for everyone to look at her the strangest they had ever looked at someone, but that she too carved replacement scars of White Flesh into him too so that he would not notice that the Second Fusion was gone would add enough hostility towards her actions that everything would spiral into chaos. "I don't feel anything from it at all."

Manny believes that what Cter did to him was her creating a Cooperative Connection with Frioke's magic that she gave him, and that through it, and the way Frioke tried to side-step the Second Fusion's grasp on Manny's soul, Cter gave back the young mage's ability to use magic while also keeping the Second Fusion in check.

A rather flimsy explanation that would surely fall apart under any form of scrutiny.

But it only needs to hold for one more day.

It could have been bad had Frioke and Manny been able to have another lesson together, but as luck would have it, a fever on the mage which all of the Barrier hangs upon is enough to have the Monster Priestess only meet to say her final goodbyes with the young mage.

"Had it faded two evenings after rather than just one evening after it would have been less cause for worry, is my guess." Aajja lifts a talon to scratch at the top of his beak. "Human illnesses don't really come and go within a day. Two days for a cold, sure, but not one. Not a high fever one evening and then absolutely nothing the next. That is what has the Monster Royals worried."

He stops scratching for a second as he glances down. "Does not help that you've been paler these past days too. We've all been, but again, you in particular. Hopefully the tan from today's clear sky will help the Monster Royals be more at ease about tomorrow." The talon returns to the ground where it clenches slightly. "They deserve more than just a break with how much they've exhausted themselves."

Cter looks down towards the monster encampment towards where the largest collection of monsters have collected around the Monster Royals delegating both tasks and encouraging words. The glow of Kry and Kurant's magic are not far away helping out with loading up onto wagons the workshops of the old marketplace as well as various belongings from the monsters. There is a blue and a green one next to one of the wagons, which Cter quickly looks past. What they are loading onto the wagon though, she takes notice of.

"I know that it is tough to sit back and just look while others are sweating themselves parched," sighs Aajja as he finds Cter's attention focused fully down the small hill. "But I should remind you that you've been the one sweating yourself parched plenty more times than you've just been watching. If there is one day that you should be allowed to be the one watching, then that is today. It is for the better, and you know that."

"But it's not how I–"

"As long as it is not feverish that you're feeling that is perfectly fine by me." Aajja clears his throat in an attention-seeking manner. "As well as everyone else." A small frown appears briefly on his closed eyes as a small cloud casts its shadow over him. "I would say so far that even the humans appreciate you taking it calmer today. It's their plan, after all. They have not done much in terms of making sure that the one they have hinged everything on is healthy enough for what they're asking her to do."

"They did not want the barrier magic before it was absolutely necessary that they had it," explains Cter as the cloud passes by. "They know how invasive the procedure is, and while that there are seven mages that are tasked to raise the Barrier as an homage to the seven colors of the Soul Rainbow, it is really that we expect that one or two will fail to utilize the magic I'm to give them. The Soul Rainbow for the public to know, and contingencies to make sure that it is guaranteed that the Barrier will be strong enough."

"And you?" Aajja's beak stops just in front of Cter's face, his eyes big and the length of his beak almost touching the ground as it is angled vertically. "What is the contingency for you?"

The large pouch catches air like a sail as Cter puts her palm on the side of the Griffon Commander's head and pushes it around. His bendy neck moves without much friction to it. "The other two Monster Mages." Like a slightly ajar painting Cter adjusts the Griffon Commander's head to look at the center of the monster encampment rather than the corner of it.

There in the center both Kry and Kurant are helping out together to move building materials with the help of a few wolf monsters. "They have barrier magic as well, and they know very intimately how it was that I gave them it. Like knowing that it is the color blue that has been taken from them when finding themselves yellow after being green."

"Been quite a lot of color talk from you ever since that fever of yours," marks Aajja with a fold to his feathery ears. "Something you dreamed while burning up?"

Cter is just gonna ignore that. "Anyway, Kry and Kurant are my contingencies. Not...official ones, but more as a secret to all the should know of it, so to speak. It's understood between us rather than written down." Whatever would happen in this last day to make Cter incapable of performing the barrier magic would be a big enough of an incident to put the entire plan of it into chaos, albeit a different one than the chaos that would emerge from the previously mentioned one.

To boot, she also does not want to put her two colleagues into more worry and exhaustion than they already are, and what she has already put them through. What she had to do to Kry she regrets having done, but does not regret doing. It worked, and she approached him later to doubly confirm that it worked. He does not remember asking Kurant about her legacy. It's been completely locked away in his soul. Cter's theory is correct, proven once more. What she plans to do to make sure that monsterkind is safe within Underground is sound. She has proven that it works with one.

Now she just has to do it to the many.

Simple.

But not easy.

For anyone participating, unknowing or not.

"Same as it is understood between us that no matter how many times you try you won't get rid of me making sure you're safe until tomorrow?" Aajja's question is quite the self-praising one.

"Even Huvett and Huvtvao is doing manual labor," counters Cter with a throw of her right hand down the small hill. "The monster who's only done diplomacy his entire life is helping out with packing up everything." From her narrow squint Cter guesses that it is the cooking tent he is repositioning up to one of the many wagons. "And here you are ordered, the Griffon Commander known for being able to carry a dozen rocks to rain down onto the human armies, to keep watch over the Monster Mage, who had one day of heatstroke, so that she does not fatigue herself once more."

In a sense it was due to heatstroke that Cter was laid low, however not from the bright, shining sun from outside her, but rather the bright, shining fusion from within her. Does that mean that the sun is a form of fusion as well?

Nah, silly thought.

Unfortunately, even a silly thought is enough for the Second Fusion within her to make itself more aware for her. Even if just a small, tensed adjustment in how she's leaning against Aajja is enough for him to notice, and for Cter to notice that he's noticed. "I'm fine," she answers before he can ask. "Just had a small itch, is all."

"Mhm," he acknowledges without the slightest agreement. "Small enough to be felt in your aura too? Usually it is only when the itch is really big on the body that it is felt in the aura. Unless you mean that the itch is in your aura, in which case..."

"You're really going to be so pedantic about this?" Of course he was going to, but what else can Cter say about it?

"When it comes to being asked both as an order and as a personal favor of the Monster Royals, yes," the Griffon Commander puts forth factually. "I am terrified of what the Underground will bring, and so are they. I know you are too, and telling everyone that everything is fine when really you are not only raises suspicion. We should all be in tears and powerless to do anything, for how are we to reasonably come to terms with what is going to happen to all of us tomorrow."

The softened angle to his brow solidifies as he lets his eyes wander over the many spots of commotion around the monster encampment. "Yet still we keep going."

With each moment that passes, more than a few spots stop to gather around someone who can not take it anymore. A monster who's hope can't help them anymore. Around them gathers others to help, helping the fallen monster to stand up again, and continue working.

"It is not something just one of can do."

It reminds Cter of those monsters that stood up to her during her duties as a Royal Messenger. That even through the hell that's been ablaze for so many years, the spirit of monsterkind has not broken. It is shattered, but not broken. "It is something all of us has to work together on." It will refuse together again.

But not with Cter along with it.

"Even if that work means doing no work, my dear Monster Mage."

The Griffon Commander's dear Monster Mage sinks in deeper into his plumage, surrounding herself with the calm warmth of his feathers all around her. For all her want to go and help monsterkind in their last day of seeing the sun, spending the last chance she will ever have amid the deep forest of feathers and fur of Aajja's is not something she has actually argued against. All she has done is voice her concerns about not being down at the busy encampment, but never that she's disliked being in the comfort of Aajja's feathers.

For when she could not let herself float in the world below the lake's surface to ease her mind, sinking down into Aajja's feathers during her journey as a Royal Messenger was a worthwhile substitute. The glucks from inside him rather than water hitting the edges of the lake. The denseness around her of the thick undercoat rather than water shielding her from the sounds and tribulations of the rest of the world. Inside the world below the lake's surface and within Aajja's plumage the weight of the world was carried above Cter, rather than by her.

It is just one more day though.

Her shoulders will hold on until then.

"What is it you want to do in the Underground, Aajja?" asks the Monster Mage while letting her White Flesh touch at the feathers of the Griffon Commander. His soul she has spent so much time with that it is unnecessary for her to touch with her White Flesh at him. She wants to though. It feels more...respectful that way. He's done so much for her. The least she can do is give him the respect he has earned so very much.

"Well," coos the griffon while sucking in air through the fastened ring around his lip, "if I am going to be honest, I would actually want to find a place for us monsters to raise some form of cattle for meat. I've...kinda promised that spider monster running his butchery that I would keep a look out for him. He approached me with the idea."

"And a free sandwich?" Cter can feel in the Griffon Commander's aura.

"...Yes." The admitting is wrought with shame, but not fully. "I think...I think it is just because it is such a vapid, almost facetious request that I want to do it. It should not be a priority, far from it. However, if I have it, and have promised to do it, then that means that I am confident that we will be safe and sound in the Underground. That things will go well and that peace will truly come to monsterkind just like the Monster Royals say that it will. I want to carry that with me. I want to believe in them that it will be true."

His small chuckle bounces his large pouch. "And I guess that begins with me being bribed by a mere sandwich to give an unfair advantage for settling this new home of ours."

"They are quite good sandwiches," Cter lets the Griffon Commander know after a short pause. "I would have settled for at least two though." She hesitates at his soul to remove his promise to her to fly around with her in the Underground. For her to still feel like she's in the air on the Surface, with all the gathered feelings of the sunlight that he is storing in his feathers for her.

With a defeated flop, Aajja's large pouch falls down onto the ground, followed shortly behind by the rest of his head and bendy neck coiling amid the yellow grass. Like a fallen flag his chin spreads out widely on the ground, only shifting as he sighs deeply. "He approached me at my weakest." His eyes flick behind him towards Cter. "At lunch, as you know." Then back towards the encampment. "It might have been the real reason I accepted the sandwich, with what I just told you being that of me finding a supposed noble meaning out of it."

"Does it feel real though?" wonders Cter. "Does the reasoning that you just told me feel real even if it was made up? Could it be that it is still noble if you pursue the goal truthfully, regardless of its origin being born out of something egotistical?" Her own way of asking permission for what she is about to do. "It will still do good in the end, won't it?"

But from whom she is asking it from she does not know.

The Griffon Commander's brow sinks for a few seconds before softening with a loose shrug that has his undercoat caressing Cter softly. "Only if I do it, I suppose."

"Only if I do it..."

"For if I do not then the wrong I did to make good on in the future will be standing on its own, never to be made right. A cattle slaughtered but its meat and hide not used. Or a ghost monster becoming incorporeal and then trying to knock on the door to enter, or something." The Griffon Commander scoffs at himself. "Sorry, this talk about the sandwich reminds me that it's about to be lunch. Can't really paint it as well as I need to at my weakest."

"Yeah," agrees the Monster Mage as she sinks even deeper into the monster's plumage. Completely surrounded by both his plumage and his aura, she feels every single minute motion of the tears running down her cheeks.

Aajja does too. "The sun, Cter?" Both the tears and that Cter's magic begins to surround his soul.

"Yeah, it's the sun, Aajja."

"Then like I said, it's good if there is some rain for this last day on the Surface."

She can not thank him enough.

"Same here, Aajja."

And she can't pray enough that he won't forgive her.