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Agott couldn’t stand Coco.
She had decided that from the moment she had seen her lovely, yet detestable face staring up at her from their now shared windowsill. Heck, she had decided that even before having seen her face.
And that same face was the one Agott couldn’t for the life of her get out of her stupid head.
Agott’s body sank forward as she struggled to keep her eyes from wandering off her own spell to the other side of the room. The one to blame for all of the young witch’s current wrongs sat in said side.
“Here’s my proof. This means I did it, right?” Coco’s naive words rang through her head.
It didn’t.
Perhaps to Qifrey. Perhaps to the other two girls. Perhaps even to Olruggio once he found out about the girl.
But not to Agott.
Never to Agott.
Her mind seemed to snap back in place when she started crumbling her spell between her hands. In her trance, she had caused her ink bottle to topple over directly on her paper, rendering it useless.
With a groan, she reached for a new sheet and also dismissed the brushbug they had seemingly adopted, which had been attracted to the scent of the spilled ink.
Agott’s glare followed the creature as it scurried back to its gentler caretaker, only for her eyes to meet Coco’s bright, worried ones. The outsider tilted her head as the brushbug settled on her shoulders.
“Hey, Agott?” Her name almost sounded sweet coming out of Coco’s mouth. Almost. “Are you okay?”
Agott’s grip tightened on her sheet. There went another paper. “I’m fine.”
She had intended for her response to be the ending point of their brief conversation, but apparently Coco was the only one of the two who hadn’t picked up on that fact.
The distracting girl took a step towards the now very distracted one. Agott was sure that if Coco got closer to her, she would start spouting some nonsense about being worried for her, so she stopped her with a hand gesture.
“I mean it.” Agott didn’t even spare her a glance. She hoped the sharp edge of her voice would do its job. “But if you really want something to worry about, I’d recommend at least getting the basics of spell casting across.”
Coco’s eyes shifted to the ground and she took a step back. She was as clearly aware of her limitations as a witch as Agott had been ever since she had heard of the rumours of an outsider using magic. So she didn’t respond at the jab.
Good. Maybe now Agott would be capable of focusing again.
“Still…”
Or not.
Agott simply looked over her shoulder, hoping the other girl could feel the daggers she was throwing her way. If Coco had, the other witch couldn’t tell because she tried to keep on talking.
“…if you need to—.” Her eyes snapped to the side. “Uh oh.”
The girl’s speech was cut by her brushbug. It had found a way to get hold of the ink Coco had forgotten to seal and was now rolling on the stain that dripped down her table.
Sure, those were one too many ink pots wasted in a single day for Agott to handle. But Coco’s own distraction was a good enough excuse for Agott to finally get back to her work. So that was exactly what she did.
As she sat down on her cushions, she couldn’t help to find Coco’s heartfelt laugh behind her almost endearing. Again, almost.
Agott really, really couldn’t stand Coco.
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
To say that Agott couldn’t stand Coco would be an understatement.
That thought repeated itself inside the witch’s head as if someone had drawn repetition signs in it. So there she was, tapping the bottom of her quilt against the sides of her head, while trying to at least get a couple more spells on paper before the hands of time inevitably dragged her to sleep.
No amount of attempts to concentrate had been able to get Coco’s detestable smile out of her head.
Agott groaned, finally admitting defeat. She placed her pen and ink on a spot she was almost completely sure the brushbug wouldn’t be able to reach. She wasn’t as distracted as to not keep that in mind.
Coco, on the other hand… Agott forced herself to snap the girl’s name out of her mind in that exact instant. She just couldn’t get what was wrong with her.
Because in all honesty, there was something deeply irritating about a girl such as Coco. Especially for a girl such as Agott. She genuinely still couldn’t understand her companion.
Companion for lack of a better word, mentally noted Agott.
“Working herself to the point of physical exhaustion…” she murmured absentmindedly, “…like that has ever done more good than what is worth.”
Agott had learnt that lesson a long time ago. Definitely in a less harsh way than Coco had, but learnt it nonetheless.
“What are you trying to accomplish?” That’s what she had inquired moments before the outsider had fallen unconscious. And although Coco giving back her shoes all fixed up was a stupidly endearing act, there was no way Agott would brush her suspicions of her away anytime soon.
Coco had to have an ulterior motive. Because if she really didn’t… then all of the walls Agott had carefully built between herself and others would begin to crack.
So she really had to have a motive! After all, Agott was sure that if she had been in Coco’s shoes, she wouldn’t have waited for a single clock mark to tell on her. Especially after almost sentencing to a painful death back at the Dadah Range. So surely, there should be…
The memory of Coco hugging her by the riverbank cut her thought process. Agott groaned and face planted on her desk. Loudly.
Maybe one of the reasons she couldn’t stand Coco was because of how irrationably incomprehensible the girl was.
Agott’s fingers traced the edge of her sylph shoes. She had reached for them without even noticing.
Coco’s handiwork had left them as clean as new and the spell had been redrawn as neatly as the inexperienced witch had been able to. One of the signs around the sigil was still longer than its counterparts.
Her hand hovered over it while her mind debated between fixing it or just leaving it be. Doing the latter would be stupid. So Agott pressed her finger against the end of the arrow.
She didn’t erase it though.
No, she just… kept it there. Only a few seconds after, she carefully retracted it, her mind reeling.
As annoying as anything coming from Coco was, Agott couldn’t deny the speed boost could be useful some other day. That arrow was, after all, what had gotten her to Qifrey so fast. Which, in turn, had gotten Coco in a hospital in Kalhn. A lump grew in Agott’s throat.
“If this morning I hadn’t been fast enough…” she wondered out loud. She sighed into her hands, her fingers shielding her eyes from the sun’s last moments of light for the day.
Great. Now the foreign warmth of the previous memory had been torn by the sharp claws that had seized her when she saw Coco collapse. She doubted those claws had retracted yet.
Agott dragged her dark curls away from her face. She had thought that the distraction Coco supposed in her spirit would dissipate at least a little bit if she was away, but apparently not.
If anything her worry—not for Coco, but for the overall situation, Agott quickly reminded herself—had only increased as the hours passed and no news of both teacher and student reached the atelier.
…she really wasn’t going to get any more work done, wasn’t she? If there had been any hope of her doing so, it had died at that exact moment. She finally got up and sat on the windowsill.
Coco…
Agott’s face contorted with an emotion she couldn’t quite name. She rested her head against the cool crystal. Only did the cold of the window against her face make her notice how warm her cheeks had grown.
Of course, that was exactly what she needed. Growing a fever as well. Agott sighed, defeated. Hopefully she’d be able to just sleep it out.
As she made her way down the stairs of the room she shared with Coco, she couldn’t wash away the nagging feeling that said witch had everything to do with this sudden fever of hers.
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
Agott really had to do something about this whole ‘Coco’ situation.
It had gotten to the point where she had even decided to try to get some kind of guidance from her teacher. However, when she had approached Master Qifrey with her worries, he hadn’t really given her anything to work with. Just an endeared, knowing smile. Agott anxiously paced around her room in the Great Hall as she recalled the interaction.
“Agott, dear,” he had begun, “this is something only time and you will be able to figure out.”
There went another thing that she, as a child, could not yet figure out.
Had it been any other moment, the young witch would have persevered and kept her search for answers going, but she could tell the man was very tired. He still needed a well deserved rest after what had happened in Romonon during the girl’s second test, both mentally and physically.
All in all, talking to Qifrey had been for naught.
Agott sighed and headed outside. She was starting to feel caged inside those stone walls, the echo of her mentor’s cryptic words echoing between them.
She had even considered asking Olruggio but ended up discarding the idea. She trusted the atelier’s watchful eye with her life, but she doubted he’d be up to the task of solving this increasingly worrying conundrum of hers.
Increasingly worrying because it had really gotten out of hand and Agott wasn’t showing any signs of getting her feelings under control. If she already didn’t know how to stop them before, now she knew even less. Especially after the encounter with Loroga.
Coco believed Agott. She truly believed her, and not what everyone said of her. Agott really didn’t know how to process that. She didn’t think she needed to though. Beliefs didn’t change facts. She had hundreds to prove wrong.
But despite that…
Agott had finally reached the small plaza where the girls and her had made the sea rain. The spell was still functioning and some kids remained playing with the water, their faces lightening up every time they caught a trace of a rainbow. The witch doubted it’s be taken out anytime soon.
A small smile grew on Agott’s face. Right. She had promised Coco she’d teach her more magic. Her magic. Her face quickly grew red and she hid it between her hands. It was a small step forward, but a step nonetheless.
Not even the thin thread of ink still engraved into her skin that mocked her with cruelty could take that accomplishment away.
Agott reached for one of the umbrellas that had been left to the side and slowly headed towards the edge where land met water.
“You have what it takes to pull it off, Agott. I know you do.”
Believing Coco’s words was incredibly tempting. And maybe Agott would let herself believe in the girl’s sweet words, at least for the day. Even if she couldn’t quite stand them.
Agott shrugged off the thought with a smile. She finally stepped under the rain.
“I just know it.”
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
Agott had never been a witch that drew spells for others. So she couldn’t have understood what Coco’s goal was before while she beat herself up for not casting a spell good enough to satisfy somebody else.
She just knew Coco was upset with a feeling that was all too familiar to Agott despite their differences. Which was why they had both ended up sitting side by side on the wall that separated Ezrest from its sea.
The things a witch does to deal with her impotence.
Her dearest spell book, the one that was filled with some of her favourite seals, was being passed back and forth between the girls and the pages in her palm quire were starting to run out from casting them.
Agott couldn’t care less. Not while she and Coco laughed at the bright and perfectly useless spells.
“If you’re stuck on a creation meant for somebody else, why not set it aside for a tiny bit… and instead craft a few spells just for you?” To think that she’d be telling that to Coco of all people and uttering words such as ‘I’m sorry.’ Agott knew that the ‘her’ from a few months prior would absolutely lose it if she knew. Present Agott couldn’t be happier though.
“Hah… alright…!” Coco tried to speak but another round of laughter interrupted her. “Oh, dear… can’t this thing just vanish already?! I can’t breathe!” She begged while grabbing her sides. The glowing owlcat that Agott had previously cast kept spinning around mindlessly. It reflected on the metallic band on Coco’s wrist.
It’s shine eventually dissipated into the starry night of the Silver Eve and Coco reached for the paper to move on to draw something else.
Something for herself.
Agott didn’t dare interrupt. So she just observed how Coco’s lovely face twisted in amusement. A smile she hadn’t stopped wearing for sometime now only grew. She patiently waited for her turn to draw something.
Something for Coco.
Agott wasn’t drawing for herself. Coco wasn’t drawing for others. For the first time, the tables had turned and each girl found themselves naturally falling into a role none would have deemed fit for them.
Coco looked up at Agott just before closing the ring around the sigil she had drawn. The dark haired witch recognised the spell.
“The unicorn…” she murmured as the beautiful creature started jumping around the girls, using the stars as leverage for her grace. Agott’s eyes fell on Coco despite the distraction the creature supposed on said witch.
I get it now, she thought. The reason magic is meant to be drawn for others.
The feeling Coco caused inside of Agott’s chest was no longer misplaced, she could tell now. As for what that feeling was…
…surely the feeling that tightened her chest was her unbridled irritation towards the girl she held so close to her heart.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
The light sensation in Agott’s head and the warmth growing on her cheeks already warned her that her assumption might have not exactly been on point but that didn’t matter. She’d figure it out eventually. She had time.
── ⋆⋅𖤓⋅⋆ ──
Time had proven to Agott that Coco was as lovely as she was detestable, something that hadn't been changed into adulthood.
Agott carefully shifted to her side to face the other woman, careful not to wake her up. Time had made her a very light sleeper.
The witches had been resting on the sofa in front of the fireplace of Coco’s very own atelier when the teacher had fallen fast asleep. Agott could only guess it had been a long, long day with her apprentices. So she hadn’t budged when Coco had laid her head on her shoulder and adjusted her body to get a comfortable resting position.
Agott absentmindedly played with the ends of Coco’s loose braid, for lack of any other activity. Funnily enough, the longer the woman had let her hair grow, the shorter Agott’s own had gotten. Agott’s fingers reached for the scar on Coco’s face and traced it with all the care in her heart. Coco nuzzled into her hand and opened an eye. Agott quickly retracted her hand.
“You’re awake.” It was a dumb thing for Agott to say. She obviously was. “… did I wake you?”
“Not…” Coco didn’t respond right away. Instead, she stretched. Agott barely dodged a hand as she started slipping off her shoulder and directly fell on her slap. “…really. I was kinda awake already.”
Agott was not about to ask what ‘kinda awake’ meant.
From her position, Coco reached for Agott’s face and cradled it between her hands. The dark haired witch regarded the woman with curiosity. She held her hands but didn’t take them away.
“Coco…?” The woman’s name was incredibly sweet coming from her mouth. “Is something the matter?”
The teacher closed her eyes, as if lost in thought. When she opened them back up, she was wearing a gentle smile. Agott could almost see her reflection on them. They were as beautiful as Coco herself.
“No,” she responded. She separated her hands from Agott’s face but kept holding her as she turned to face the fireplace. “Everything’s great.”
Agott tilted her head, but Coco didn’t offer any explanation for her attitude. So she simply started brushing her fingers through Coco’s bangs.
Agott… she had to be honest. She still didn’t understand Coco. And she doubted she ever would. Both the lovely and the not-so detestable parts of her. She’d never really understand her dear partner.
That was fine with Agott though. She could live having to deal with Coco's irritatingly endearing smiles, her seemingly unending excitement for magic, the glances the young women would exchange between them when they were together. She could live with the feelings Coco sprouted in her heart.
But Agott… Agott wanted to be with her not only through the good, but through the bad as well. The restless nights thinking about Coco no longer bothered her. She wanted to hear about Coco’s hurt and even cry hers too.
Agott wanted to be with her through everything.
So surely she could learn to tolerate the detestable but lovely witch she had grown to be. If it meant having Coco by her side for the rest of her life, she absolutely could.