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Agott likes having a room to herself. She operates with weird hours when compared to the other residents of the atelier. Most of her nights are spent poring through her books with reckless abandon until her body gives up, and she promptly passes out on the desk. In the privacy of her room, this gives her a feeling of superiority: no one works as hard as she does. No one is as committed. Each morning that the light of the mid-risen sun awakens her, she bears deep oak groove indents on her face as a mark of dedication.
So, suffice to say, she knows the outsider’s interruption to her routine might become a problem. It’s a smaller footnote in the resentment she feels towards the unbridled audacity of that girl, and hopefully one that will not matter much when she fails the first test.
And then Coco passes her test. The problem ranks up her list of priorities.
At first, she tries to just ignore Coco’s presence. It’s one thing to feel her watching as she works through the day, but it’s a whole other beast entirely when it’s approaching the midnight hour, and she can still feel Coco’s eyes on her back.
Creepy. It makes her shiver.
“Go to bed,” she grumbles.
A squeak comes from Coco’s side of the room, and fabric ripples as she rapidly turns over in her bed. Agott assumes that’ll be the end of it, but then she hears Coco sitting up behind her. She preemptively rolls her eyes. Coco’s voice is a little accusatory when she asks, “You’re still up, though? Why do I have to go to bed?”
At this, Agott finally turns around, resting her arm over the back of her chair. She notes how small she looks in her bed, the way her hands still grip the comforter. Agott knows she’s still desperate for comfort, knows that Coco’s still hurting, but frankly, she doesn’t have the time or desire to give this to her.
“Studying on your own won’t do much for you at your current skill level. You can try once you have the basics down.” Agott closes the circle on a minor light spell she’d been working on, and it fizzles above the paper like stars. Ha, that’ll show her. “Now, sleep.”
Coco’s eyes sparkle brightly as she traces the path of the spell. If there’s one thing she could tolerate about the girl, perhaps it would be her unending fascination with magic. Still, it leaves a sour taste in her mouth. She’s nothing but an onlooker. To her, a spell is only beautiful because she knows nothing of the gruesome work it requires.
And yet, when Coco lies down to sleep with a huge smile on her face, Agott can feel her own heat up.
By the morning, any warmth she might have felt becomes a distant memory. She does not wake up to the gentle rays of the sun, or birdsong, or even the laughter of the other apprentices from outside her window.
She wakes up to a crash, which is followed by a bang, and then a bleat.
Agott’s eyes shoot open. To her left, standing a couple of inches from her face, is a sheep. It bleats at her sadly. She jumps up, scrambling onto her desk. The movement throws papers flying.
They stare at each other. The ceiling coughs.
Agott’s eyes jump, immediately landing on Coco, whose back appears to be stuck to the ceiling. Her legs are kicking the air helplessly, like a bug stuck in a trap. From the light streaming in from the window, she can tell the sun has just risen. She genuinely cannot comprehend how this situation has happened in the brief time she’s been asleep, but it’s already giving her a headache.
“Uhm…” Coco tries, stuttering over herself, “Can you, uh– I mean, help? Please?”
Agott continues to stare at her as she wiggles on the ceiling.
“Baa,” says the sheep, who at this point Agott thinks she might have to ignore.
In a situation like this, she would typically use her slyph shoes to examine the offending spell, but having lent them to Coco (and with them being ruined, she suspects), they are no longer an option. Just using a ladder makes it difficult to address the seal that is likely gluing Coco there, and trying to pull her off without doing so might take off some of the ceiling, depending on its strength.
She hesitates a little bit, but pulls out her paper and drafts a couple of options. Coco watches her, silently enraptured. It doesn’t take long to get her down, but when she does, Coco looks at her like she hung the stars.
“Thank you,” she says, clasping Agott’s hands and shaking them. “I don’t know how I did that!”
Agott frowns, inwardly a little elated to see Coco fail so badly, but equally just annoyed at the imposition. “Let me see it.”
She looks embarrassed, but she hands it over. Immediately, Agott can tell she was practicing with her wind spells, but added something into the mix that flubbed the intent. So, she points a finger at a shape on the paper. “Here. This symbol serves as a binding agent. Adding it here adjusted the spell to propel upwards until it made contact with an object, after which it would stop and stick to it.”
“Oh, I see! Thanks, Agott!”
Agott casts her eyes to the side, where the sheep is standing in the corner in the least distracting way possible. It meets her eyes and then turns around, face against the wall. “Okay. How did the sheep get here?”
She blinks. “It followed me in.”
Agott is speechless. She looks back at the sheep, then back at Coco again. “Don’t bring animals into the room. This is a rule.”
“But brushbuddy–”
“No animals in the room except for the brushbug. Clean up the mess, and bring the sheep outside.”
“Right!” She salutes her, then herds the sheep out of the room. Agott has never seen an animal as relieved as this one.
As soon as she’s outdoors, Agott collapses against her chair. Is this her life now? Waking up to farm animals? The outsider hasn’t even been here for a week, and their cohabitation has already gone worse than she’d expected.
Well, whatever. If she could fail so badly with a basic wind spell, she probably won’t last long here anyway, whether she passed the first test or not.
Agott sees things a little differently after they survive the encounter with the dragon. She can’t really say Coco doesn’t understand the weight of magic anymore. Begrudgingly, she’s accepted her as a part of her space, but that doesn’t mean they’re friends about it.
Finally taking a good look at her is strange, though. She notices one night, when she comes back from fieldwork later than usual, only to find Coco already sleeping. It strikes her as unusual to go to bed so early, but she’s pretty young, so it’s likely not outside of the norm.
While she’s awake, Coco acts endlessly energetic and optimistic, despite the insecurity she must feel. But when she’s asleep, it is not as though this trait is dimmed down, but rather replaced with a look of tranquil sadness. In all honesty, Agott finds it kind of strange. It’s an expression she doesn’t like.
Also, with how her brows will knit occasionally, small shadows drape over her eyes, leading to a kind of ominous look. It’s ill-fitting for someone as bright as her.
As if willed into motion by the thought, Coco’s eyes open. Meaning she sees Agott, who is standing directly in front of her bed, watching her.
This is it. She’s going to die here. Her tombstone is going to read: Rest in Peace to the Apprentice Who was a Total Creep to her Roommate and Never Made a Name for Herself, and Her Family Didn’t Pay for this Tombstone, so Qifrey had to, and Now He and His Apprentices Live in Poverty Eating Water Soup for Dinner.
Noticing her panic, Coco jumps up and waves her hands in front of her erratically.
“Oh! Um! Don’t be embarrassed!!! I like watching you sleep, too!” she shouted. The excessive noise made Agott’s ears ring.
“Huh?!” Agott felt a bead of sweat fall from her face. “Just what are you talking about now?”
“I don’t mind at all!”
“Er–” she waffled, rushing to leave the room. On her way out, she quickly said, “Master Qifrey wanted to see you. Don’t keep him waiting.”
Ah, she’s not a good roommate either, is she…?
The next time Agott is unceremoniously awakened, there isn’t any light in the room at all. When she comes to, it’s at the sound of a particularly painful bang. Learned in the ways of having a roommate, she pulls out of bed and lights a fire spell.
Lying face-first on the ground is Coco, who is drenched in sweat. Her breath sputters in short increments as she tries to prop herself up by her arms.
Agott rushes over to help her up, almost dropping the fire spell in the process. Coco settles fairly quickly with assistance, but her breathing is still rushed and her eyes dullened. Nonetheless she says, “Thank you.”
“Did something happen?” Agott asks casually, taking care to pretend to look for danger.
Coco shakes her head. “Nightmare.”
This Agott understands. She keeps her own at bay through her method of only sleeping once worked to exhaustion, but this is not for everyone. She doesn’t know what to say, so she asks, “Are you alright?”
“I am. It’s just… When I used to have bad dreams, I would sleep with my Mom,” Coco smiled, voice trailing off. She sighed. “It was nice to have someone there. Now, it’s just…”
Agott feels guilt curl in her stomach, and freezes in place. She’d like to think she’d made amends, but even still, she’d contributed to some of her sadness, hadn’t she? It’s in this stewing remorse that she speaks without thinking. “If you ever need to…” she grimaces, “When you have a bad dream, you can…”
Coco tilts her head.
“If it would help, you could join me. I guess.” Agott stares at the ceiling, trying valiantly to remain unaffected and cool. She curses herself internally for sounding stupid, but all the same, Coco’s eyes widen and glimmer in the firelight.
“Really? That’d be okay?”
“I’d do anything to keep you from waking me up again,” Agott gripes. “Master Qifrey threatened to do bedtime checks if I don’t start getting more sleep.”
“Sorry! But I’d really appreciate it. If it’s okay with you.” Coco rolls to stand on her feet and awkwardly trails towards Agott’s bed.
“Now?”
She looks a little bit stressed as she demurs, “If it’s alright.”
“Yeah, it’s,” Agott’s heartbeat accelerates to a dangerous speed, thrumming louder than her thoughts. “Yeah.”
Deciding to leave it at that, she puts out the spell and climbs into bed. In the dark, Coco fumbles a bit, but eventually she, too, makes it under the covers. Despite her care to leave her plenty of space, Coco lies close enough that Agott can feel the heat radiating from her body. From this, Agott can’t get her mind to settle, and it feels like hours pass with them both lying deathly still.
After what might have been an eternity, a light rustling is the only warning Agott gets before an arm flings over her side, and Coco is embracing her in a hug. A blush washes across her face, and she moves to push her off, before thinking better of it. She feels comfortable and… it’s fine if she can have this, isn’t it?
Yeah, she doesn’t mind the brush of Coco’s hair against her neck, or the slight shifts she makes to get comfortable, and she especially is unbothered when Coco sighs contentedly. So, she snuggles against her and falls into a dreamless sleep.
The unpleasant awakening wasn’t even Coco’s fault this time. No, in truth, she only has herself to blame. She also had, for a long while, not been sleeping well. So, because she had felt so comfortable, she hadn’t woken up to the sun or even any of her other, less pleasant interruptions.
When her eyes fluttered open, the first thing she heard was whispering. Standing in front of her bed was the whole Atelier, it seemed. Richeh looked like she was about to jump into the bed, Tetiah was just repeatedly saying ‘awwww’, and Qifrey had a wistful look in his eye.
Drowsily, Agott tried to remember what she had been doing before she fell asleep. She’d come back late, and then…
She looked down. Coco’s head was nestled on her shoulder, and she was clinging to her midsection. Additionally, if her slow breathing was any indication, she was still very much asleep. In this moment, Agott felt true fear.
Whispering, she addressed the peanut gallery, “Why are you in my room?”
Tetia was about to answer, but Qifrey lifted a finger to his mouth, pointing to Coco. In an equally hushed voice, he said, “We had a scheduled lesson an hour ago.”
Agott broke out into a cold sweat. “I’m sorry for keeping you waiting, Master Qifrey, it won’t happen again–”
“Don’t worry about it.” He shook his head, a gentle smile on his face. “I’m glad that you’re both getting your sleep. That comes first, you know? And besides, I’m happy you’re getting along.”
“Agotta be included,” said Richeh.
“Agottable,” said Tetia, throwing a thumbs up.
“Ugh.” That one was just lazy. She was about to tell her as much when Coco stirred. She rolled over, releasing Agott, and blinked up at the others.
“Oh, good morning!” Her eyebrows furrowed as she wiped crust from her eyes. “Why are you all in my room?”
Qifrey sighed, putting on airs. “Well, to wake you up, of course. You’re going to miss breakfast.”
This got Coco moving, and she immediately rolled out of bed. Sitting up, she rubbed the back of her head. “Sorry for making you guys come get us! Let’s go down.”
And though the others began to file out, when Coco stood up, she turned to drag Agott out of bed. She let herself be pulled, but still stumbled a little bit.
“Come on!” She smiled, pulling harder. “There are worse ways of getting up, don’t you think?”
And though she wouldn’t say it, secretly, Agott agreed.