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Agott had a problem. Well, she didn’t like to call it that.
Problems were things like Coco or storms making too much noise, events that unnecessarily impede on her studies, the changing of seasons (Heavens forbid, she is an illness magnet). This was just… something to adapt to, and something she has adapted to for years.
Years before Coco – the daughter of an outsider-seamstress arrived. Coco, who burst through the atelier with more acceptance and compassion for things than most witches Agott could name. Witches are born into a system, there are expectations of people (like people who happen to be a daughter of a Chief Librarian). Coco did not know of these expectations, and seemed perfectly happy to disobey them as she saw fit.
Expectations like how a witch’s uniform should look… in her own opinion. Qifrey never said they couldn’t change their uniforms up, and showed no negative emotion when Tetia – shortly after joining the atelier – bursted from her room one day with lacy petticoats under her uniform skirt. The uniform skirt that Tetia cut shorter so the lace could peak through, yet Qifrey didn’t even sigh at the sight. He even clapped when Tetia did a twirl, practically giving him and Agott a fashion show.
Then Richeh arrived, and was given the same knee-length skirt as Agott. Agott didn’t see when or what was done to change the uniform, just that one day, it was down to the middle of her calf. No one commented on it, but Agott saw how Richeh looked… happier? Like she was granted freedom, for being able to change her skirt length.
Agott saw the uniform as something she was given, and expected to wear as-is. She would have no hopes as a librarian if she went around changing things based on mere feelings. The changes she wanted felt both extreme and silly – she wanted to forego the skirt entirely. To refashion the flowy skirt into… flowy pants? Agott had no clue if such a thing existed for she had never seen it, but if anyone knew how to create it, it would be Coco.
Agott – though she would never admit it – has been keeping an eye on Coco, especially when she’s displaying her seamstress skills. She gets into this focus that magic doesn’t even bring her – with a furrow in her brow, her lip caught between teeth as if it’s a hard caramel when she’s thinking, and her tongue parting through her lips when she’s focused on getting her stitch straight. Agott admires her hands, with the calluses on the thumbs from needle-work… for their steadiness, of course. She shakes the idea of there being any other reason out of her mind. Coco has steady, notably soft, callused hands – a good trait for a witch.
Coco has been… Agott doesn’t wish to call it pestering, for Coco is never a pest to her, but there’s no other word for it. Coco has been pestering Agott on her uniform for the past month, claiming to have seen a “glimmer in her eye” when Coco was altering her own uniform to add an elaborate circle design on the sleeve.
Agott figures this is some seamstress-specific magic, to be able to peer into people’s hearts and unravel out their true clothing desires. Sadly for Coco, Agott is a closed book, and has given her little to work with.
“Perhaps…” Coco was staring out the window, compiling all she knows about Agott into an outfit change. She was sitting on the step leading into Agott’s desk area, but Agott knew better now. Her desk was not fully her desk, it was also Coco’s place to be – whenever she wished, which was usually everyday with a burning desire to chat. “Perhaps you want lace, similar to Tetia’s alteration? But in a more… edgy, black cut…”
“If I yearned for lace, I would have asked Tetia when she altered it. Years ago, mind you.” The harshness in her tone has softened considerably since Coco first came, but she still tries to sound harsh. It doesn’t work, since Coco makes the executive decision to scott closer, and lean her back against Agott’s own. She sucks in a breath and stiffens just slightly, Coco is nothing if not bold, and it’s (wonderful) horrifying. Agott turns her head just a bit, sounding incredulous now. “‘Edgy, black cut’? Surely, that is not how you think of me.”
Coco scrambled to turn around, leaning over Agott’s shoulder like this was a deep wrong she had to fix. It was a curious opposite from the labyrinth, where Coco actively leaned away from Agott when facing her questioning – now, she leaned in, her breath on her cheek.
“I– It’s not! Not at all! I was just thinking pink and white go together, right?” Coco was making erratic gestures with her hands, brushing Agott’s loathsome dress. Still, even if she had all reason to, Agott stayed put and listened attentively to her scrambling. “So, so, surely, the same can be said about purple and black!”
Agott fought a smile at her rambling, and a blush from creeping on her face. Maybe Coco can fashion her a tie, so she can choke the blood from ever getting past her neck when Coco’s around. She turned her head just slightly in her direction, catching Coco’s eye in her peripheral.
“It’s fine. I was… just teasing.” There’s an undercurrent of tenderness in her tone, as Agott speaks to Coco like they knew each other since birth. A bit of regret rises in Agott, to not have known Coco earlier, maybe then she would have been less cruel when they first met—
A delighted giggle breaks her out of her thoughts, as Coco swiftly wraps her arms around Agott’s midsection. A display of her overflowing joy, one she’s seen offered to Tetia before – or did she pick it up from Tetia? Agott can’t recall, nor does she care much, when Coco squeezes her and she gets a whiff of the mint shampoo she bought in Kahln.
Agott judged the purchase as frivolous then, rolling her eyes at the new witch’s desire to buy non-magic items, but now she is grateful – for Coco smells like Coco, and not like the bulk soap Olruggio buys for them, and there is nothing more comforting.
“C’mon, Agott!” Coco removes her arms, and Agott has to stifle a whine from the loss of contact. She crawls over to sit close to Agott, close enough that their legs touch, and their eyes meet naturally. “Now you have to tell me the uniform change you want! To make it up to me! Or… you A-gotta tell me!”
Agott thinks the smile Coco has is way too big for how bad the pun was, but it’s dripping in so much confidence and unfiltered joy, that Agott leans back to stifle a chuckle of her own behind her fist. She shakes her head, and waves her hand through the air, as if wafting the idea away like it was smoke.
“I already refused, haven’t I? Please respect that, Coco.” Coco does not and instead pouts, dramatically so. It reminds Agott of the dramatics Tetia puts on when convincing Olruggio to join them in Kahln. Unlike Tetia, however, Coco has the gall to grab at her arm and whine. A true display to convince her. “...You are most certainly persistent.” Agott tries her best to keep her voice flat, she really does, but it wavers.
Agott heard once that outsiders are quite touchy, in a way that completely differs from witch society. Witches don’t touch that often, it’s almost criminal to touch a witch while she draws and both hands are needed for drawing spells. For the same reason, witches keep a physical distance from each other, so the arms have space to move and to prevent bumping into each other.
Coco, however, did not grow up as a witch like the rest of the apprentices. She touches, she grabs, she shakes the other girls, she hugs, she leans – all of it sends Agott into a fit. Especially due to its unexpected nature, Qifrey leaning in to check her linework as she draws is expected, Coco grabbing her arm with a devastatingly flustering mix of tenderness and plea is not expected.
“Please, Agott?” Coco is using dirty tricks, some could call it manipulation. Her voice is laced with honey, and leans in closer to Agott, negating all the work she did leaning back. Agott can feel Coco’s breath brushing against her chin, and can see how Coco is putting in extreme efforts to keep her eyes open wide. A clear attempt to look cute and pitiful, like a kicked brushbuddy.
“Coco, I…” Agott wishes there was a spell to swallow her into the ground when she can’t pull the words out of herself. At least she got her bearings together enough to not have her voice waver.
A silence stretches between them. Which only makes Coco’s eyes water, making the sight more pitiful. Agott wonders if Coco knew Agott lost the second she leaned in like that, making it possible to count the glitter in her eyes. Dear God, she’s lost. She has to run away from the atelier, maybe there’s a non-forbidden spell to turn her into a brushbuddy, or she can sneak the memory wiping spell to remove the moment Agott loses her dignity from Coco’s mind–
Coco’s hand moves up to Agott’s, her thumb pressing into her palm comfortingly. In the moments Agott was pondering on how to save face, Coco’s expression had transformed from teasing to remorseful. Not the same remorse she’s seen Coco have from her mistakes – like when she apologized for ruining the seal on Agott’s sylph shoes – which is usually loud, frantic. It’s as if Coco will die if she doesn’t openly, near-theatrically, convey her apologies.
This was more tender around the edges. Coco knew Agott kept her feelings and reasonings close to her chest, especially if it pertained to her upbringing.
Once, Coco had gotten curious as to why Agott keeps her hair so short – of course, not in a bad way! Coco adored Agott’s hair, from helping her when the frizz got bad in the warmer months (with teasing comparisons to a freshly dried brushbuddy) to wrapping the curls loosely around her finger during particularly long pegasus carriage rides. A sleepy Agott is an Agott who lets everything slide with no more than a grumble, she learned those nights.
Even so, after prying a bit too much, Agott lost control of her frustration. She gripped her pen with a white-knuckle grip, and bowed her head so low and so fast that Coco scrambled with the worry that she fainted and would hit her head. Agott told Coco to leave her be through gritted teeth, and refused to even look at her until that evening.
There, she brought tea, slices of lemon poppy seed loaf, and a well thought out apology for acting impolitely towards Coco, since Agott knows she just gets curious. Agott divulged the information that she doesn’t want to appear like her mother, who had disowned her. Coco understood then, to not pry like that into Agott again, especially when appearances were involved. If Agott wanted to tell her something, Coco trusts that she would.
Coco felt a wave of guilt now, assuming she had messed it all up again with her attempts to help Agott when she clearly wasn’t ready to share the information. She looked down at their touching legs, an apology forming on her lips, but Agott cut her off by flipping her held hand around – the position was a bit uncomfortable, but Agott would make do if it was for Coco – and squeezing Coco’s hand.
“After dinner is an acceptable time for us both, yes?” Agott’s head is turned away from Coco, as she is busy trying to get the heat she feels on her cheeks to stop by willpower alone. She can’t imagine holding Coco’s hand, admitting vulnerability, and looking in her eyes at the same time.
Despite her efforts, her head snaps back to Coco’s direction when she removes her hand from Agott’s grip in favor of reaching up a bit and wrapping both arms around Agott’s neck. Excited laughter spills from her lips like a fountain of joy, and it shocks Agott more than she’d like to admit. It is hard to save face with a girl so… unpredictable.
“Yes! I look forward to it!” Coco sounds so truly thrilled at simply learning the changes Agott wanted to her uniform, to the point that Agott can’t find it within herself to let her pride consume her until she can’t tell Coco a thing – not even a type of fabric, or color.
In this moment, Agott doesn’t think she could deny Coco a thing. Even if she asked for something absurd, like for Agott to rip off her fingernails – which Agott knows Coco would never do. Coco could never ask anyone in the atelier something with malicious intent, and especially not Agott.
Agott watches Coco disappear into the hallway, having cited a need to know when dinner would happen, and wonders when she became so soft.
┈ ✁✃✁✃✁✃✁✃✁ ┈
Agott has dinner in her and Coco’s study room that night, which she was only allowed to do after promising Tetia – who would have pulled her by the hair just to get her to the table – she won’t do it the rest of the week.
Her bowl of stew sits on her desk as she stares off into space, tapping her finger rhythmically on the table, thinking on how to explain her situation without sounding like a buffoon. Agott doesn’t understand where this feeling came from and lacks the memory to know when it started, all she knows is a deeply uncomfortable feeling pertaining to her femininity.
It’s not like she isn’t a girl, she just wants to be… looked at differently. Wear different clothes, hear different words when strangers speak to her. In Kahln, she remembers grimacing when a store clerk called her a “little princess” – Master Qifrey assumed she just didn’t like unsolicited comments and gave the clerk a stern glare, but it wasn’t that. The word “princess” made her feel like a child, with how badly she wanted to huff and glare and stomp her foot and cry all at once.
A secret she holds true to her heart is the catalyst that made her cut her waist-length hair all the way down to a pixie. She was the first apprentice, which also made her almost a guinea pig for Master Qifrey and Olruggio to discover how to treat a child in practice and not just in theory.
During dinner, Olruggio had walked behind her and gathered her long, thick hair into his hands. He made a loud, questioning hum, before his eyes wandered to Qifrey.
“We were never taught how to deal with these curls, were we?” He raised an eyebrow, hands softly feeling out the tangles. During these times, when Agott was a new apprentice, she was quiet and shy and scared. That’s the only reason she was allowing him to feel her hair as if she’s a doll.
“We were not.” Master Qifrey sounds way too pleased and happy with the situation, a state he’s been in since Agott chose him as an apprentice. Qifrey knew some little witch-to-be would pick him one day, but it was such a joy when it truly happened. Olruggio eyes Qifrey like he has a frog on his head, before grunting and staring back down at Agott’s hair. The little girl now was looking up a bit, making slight eye contact with the Watchful Eye.
“You’re not such a princess that you can’t tell your Master Qifrey how to do it, right? I am sure he’d be delighted to–” Olruggio was cut off by Agott slamming her spoon onto the table, and hurrying into her room, making him accidentally tug on her hair in the process, “...do it.”
Him and Qifrey share a few moments of silence, with Qifrey staring him down like he has half a mind to not crawl over the table and choke him out. Olruggio scrambles under his gaze, looking from his hands with a few strands of long, dark purple hair left in his grasp to Qifrey over and over.
Agott hears pieces of the ensuing chaos left in her wake as she retreats to her room, from Olruggio struggling to justify his words to Qifrey scolding him and reminding him of her mother. Of course, Master Qifrey would assume this ties into her physical appearance and how she looks like a mini version of her mom. It makes perfect sense. Agott does dislike that comparison, but not just because of what her mother did, but also because her mother looks like… a typical lady. Regal, feminine, with her hair long and her makeup done and her breasts defined in an outfit with a ridiculously large skirt – it makes Agott sick to imagine herself looking similar.
She thinks when she hits puberty and starts growing breasts, she will bind her chest with bandages to discourage them from ever growing. But then, she doesn’t think she would hate them entirely – just a small, burning desire to pick when she has them. Agott wishes they were removable and something she can keep in her drawer to put on and off whenever she likes.
Agott’s small hands find the scissors in her study, and she starts hacking her hair off without even a mirror. Hot, wet tears slide down her cheeks in silence, having learned how to cry without even a little gasp. She’s cutting it to her ears, she thinks. Agott’s method was to just grab a section of hair in her fist and cut close to her ear, feeling a deep satisfaction seeing the long hair on the floor.
She’s gotten around two-thirds of the way through her head when the door to the study creaks open, the smell of an herbal tea wafting in. Qifrey walks in with calmness, balancing a tea cup and coaster in one hand.
“Agott? Are you al– oh dear.” Qifrey’s words didn’t come out judgemental, just concerned and reasonably shocked. He knew she’d be emotional, but this was at the bottom of his list of expectations for when he opened the door. A little child, merely ten, sobbing far too quietly to be normal while hacking her hair off like it was physically harming her.
She stares at him with wide eyes, her hands fall to her side – one holding a section of cut-off hair, the other holding the scissors. Qifrey would never admit it, but he stood like a deer in headlights for a few moments. He got his act together quickly, and walked over to her as if she was a scared animal he was trying not to startle. Setting the tea on her desk, he softly pries the scissors from her hands while mumbling sweet nothings.
“I… I must ask, what are you doing, Agott?” He sits down on the floor, causing him to stare up at her. Agott’s tears had slowed from the shock of being walked in on, but her eyes get watery again at the reminder of her actions. A reminder of her hair, where the remaining long locks feel like an anvil.
“I need it off.” Agott sounds desperate, her hands trembling just a bit since she lost the scissors. She can’t cut it off anymore, and it feels like she’s been gutted because of it. But she remembers herself, and her manners. “...Please.”
Qifrey smiles reassuringly, patting his lap to instruct her to sit. Agott stares, unmoving, so he holds the scissors up just a bit.
“I am certain I can do a better cutting job than you at this moment.” He motions to his own hair – short with even layers. Qifrey isn’t going to say it to Agott out loud, but her hair is horrifically uneven. If someone told him a pegasus carriage ripped her hair out, he would believe them. “Please, sit.”
This gets her moving, as she drops the cut hair in her hand onto the floor and wipes her hand on her singlet. For a few moments, she simply stares at the mess of cut hair surrounding her feet, as if truly realizing what she had done. Qifrey waits, ever-so-patiently.
At her own pace, Agott makes her way into Qifrey’s lap, tense as a board with her back to him. Qifrey has to hold himself back from cooing at the little girl, settling to gently rub his hand up and down her arm to get her settled.
“You can relax, Agott. You’re alright.” He puts as much tenderness as possible in his voice, trying to soothe her a bit, but all he gets is a little sniffle. Qifrey sighs with a smile, happily exasperated by his new apprentice.
He cuts off her long hair, leaving a short pixie on her head. The relief she feels is immense, as if he removed a massive splinter from her palm. She doesn’t reveal what truly caused her massive outburst, and he doesn’t pry.
That was years ago, and she assumed she would never tell a soul. Her act of rebellion against what is normal should’ve ended there.
How does she explain this to Coco? The issue isn’t that Coco wouldn’t be accepting, or Agott fears her being cruel with this tender secret. Coco is never cruel with her fellow apprentices, she’s full of compassion and sweetness that leads her to be nothing but accepting. The issue is Agott wants Coco to understand fully how she feels and why she feels that way, which is probably impossible, but she’s Agott and she can do the impossible.
Agott isn’t exactly overjoyed at the prospect of telling Coco this feeling that’s been simmering in her chest for years. But Coco wants to know, and she asks with such genuine curiosity and a desire to help Agott, which makes it near impossible to refuse her. She just doesn’t know how to say it in a way that makes sense.
She’s tapping her fingers on her desk, coming up with ways to explain herself and why she wants to change her uniform drastically, when the door pushes open. Coco practically skips into the room, beaming with excitement.
“Agott! You promised–” Coco stops when she’s standing next to where Agott is sitting, as her eyes fall onto the untouched dinner on the desk, “Oh. You haven’t eaten? Why?” Agott feels a twinge of guilt at how quickly her voice went from sunny and excited, to just a deep concern and care.
“Apologies. I was too caught up in my studies.” A quick lie, and Agott knows that Coco knows it’s a lie. She doesn’t even have her ink open on the desk, let alone a pen in her hand. Coco smiles anyways, and sits down next to Agott.
“Why are you apologizing to me?” Coco reaches for Agott’s still-warm bowl of stew, courtesy to Qifrey’s sigil on the bottom of the bowl that always keeps the food at the perfect eating temperature. Agott feels a flush of embarrassment at her question, and looks down at their laps.
“You seemed very excited, but I haven’t– huh?” Agott’s eyes flicker to Coco’s when a spoonful of stew appears in front of her lips. Coco is holding the spoon, Coco is spoonfeeding Agott her dinner. Agott feels her cheeks and ears get hot, wishing to cover them but knowing it would only embarrass her more. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Feeding you?” Coco tilts her head to the side just slightly, but her cheeks and nose are a flushed pink. Agott has seen Coco in countless ways, but seeing her blushing and pretending to have no clue the effects of her action is a version of Coco she never anticipated. Agott stares at Coco like she grew an extra head.
“I can feed myself, Coco.”
“I know.”
“You know? So what is this for?” Agott can’t help but sound incredulous, bewildered by the ways of this meadow-haired girl with a sun for a heart.
“I just wanna do this for you!” Coco sounds nervous, Agott realizes. Her cheeks have become a deeper shade of pink, and her head is facing the desk rather than Agott. The spoon is still in front of Agott’s lips, but Coco’s hand is softly trembling.
How can Agott not give in when faced with such an endearing sight? If she was more like Tetia, she’d squeal and squeeze Coco so tightly her ribs would creak. Instead, she leans forward and eats the spoonful of stew. She’s embarrassed by the act, feeling as though she is not a child and can feed herself. It feels infantilizing.
But seeing how Coco snaps her head back in Agott’s direction, with the brightest and softest smile Agott has ever seen makes it worth it. She focuses on chewing her food over giving Coco a few criticisms about doing this to her. Coco looks at Agott like she’s something extraordinary, which is more than enough to soothe her heart and weaken her defenses.
Agott finishes the bowl like that, being spoonfed and equally flustered as the girl next to her. She ate in silence, but it didn’t feel awkward. It felt safe and welcoming, which is how Coco usually makes Agott feel.
Coco places the bowl back on the desk, turning back to Agott with stars in her eyes. Her hands grab onto the singlet’s skirt that covers her legs, an excited smile returning once more as she leans in far closer than Agott would’ve expected. It feels as if they’re a whisker away from touching noses.
“Now you’ll tell me? I have the right string already! Master Qifrey let me buy a whole set of tools in Kahln, so I can make any adjustments! A-gotta not let you down!” Coco giggles at her own joke, and it’s a sound Agott wants to put in a bottle to relisten whenever she wants. Thankfully, Coco isn’t going anywhere, she just has to stay by her side so she can hear that giggle whenever she wishes. Agott smiles, a true and unburdened smile.
“I trust in your abilities, Coco. I’m simply unsure of how to explain myself, and why I wish to change it.” A hint of anxiety has pooled in Agott’s stomach, and she’s suddenly regretting eating right before this. She finds Coco’s eyes again with her own, and sees an overflow of care and compassion, it renders her nearly speechless.
“You don’t have to tell me, y’know? You can just explain the changes and I won’t ask questions.” Coco leans back, moving one of her hands so her finger touches her cheek in thought. “I can’t promise Tetia won’t ask though… and that whatever answer won’t find its way to Richeh…” Agott stifles back a chuckle, shaking her head slightly at Coco’s concerns.
“That’s alright, I know how to handle Tetia so she stops prying.” Agott blush, which had died down, comes back with a vengeance. She averts her eyes from Coco’s, which are still way too accepting of Agott in her opinion. “And I… I wish for you to know, truly.”
Agott hears Coco gasp softly, unprepared for the genuinity in her voice and the vulnerability in the admission. The idea that Agott is indirectly saying she trusts Coco with this more than Tetia, who she has known longer, makes Coco blush and feel as though she has to shy away from something so special.
“Oh… well. You know I won’t judge you.” Coco tries to smile reassuringly, but she guesses that she fails from how Agott white knuckle grips her clothes when she looks back over to her. Coco is too flustered to be reassuring, she just wants to wrap Agott in a quilt that she has sewn with her own hands using love and acceptance as the thread, so she never has to worry so hard about anyone's judgement again.
Agott nods, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she stares off into space, contemplating on how to word everything. Coco doesn’t rush her, and has let go fully of Agott’s clothes by now. Coco knows her Agott, and she needs ample space in moments like this. If she’s touched too much when her mind is in disarray, she could explode on whoever touched her – something Coco learned the hard way. Coco learned the hard way, but she doesn’t mind or judge Agott for her actions. That’s just how she is, and Coco likes how she is.
Coco is staring off into space, a dreamy smile on her face, before perking up at hearing a little mumble beside her. She notices how Agott’s ears have become a flushed red color, and understands the mumble came from her roommate.
“Umm… what was that? I couldn’t really understand you…” Coco holds back a giggle when she sees Agott turn her head, and stare her down. Like she admitted to murdering a scalewolf. She smiles, trying to convey as much reassurance as she can in such a small gesture, since she keeps her hands folded in her lap. Agott looks straight ahead of her, fiddling with her dress. A habit she only indulges in around Coco now, since Coco is the only one not to make a statement about her fidgeting.
“I don’t…” Agott trails off into a murmur, making Coco tilt her head to the side helplessly. She doesn’t wanna keep pushing, but she’s being given such little to work with.
“You don’t what, Agott?” Coco makes her voice soft and quiet, matching the feeling in the room. Agott was trying to lay her heart bare on the table and explain the parts to Coco, and she would be damned if she mishandled such a thing.
“I don’t wish to…” Agott took a deep breath, believing that she should be better than this. More put together, less anxious. Like an Arklaum. Ripping the bandage off is easiest, right? She looks purposefully away from Coco, if she sees Coco judging her with her eyes, it will be the last of her days.
“I do not wish to look like a girl.”
“Oh.”
“In the traditional sense, obviously.”
She can hear the gears turning in Coco’s head. Coco can be a bit… confused in moments like these, but she means well. She just grew up sheltered. When she saw Qifrey give Olruggio a peck on the corner of his mouth, she stared at Agott with wide eyes and asked if two men could really do that – she sounded as amazed as when she saw Qifrey’s water sculptures. Coco was open and eager to learn, which meant Agott couldn’t be deterred by her questioning.
“Are you not a girl, then? It’s okay if you aren’t, but we couldn’t share a bed during storms and nightmares anymore.” Coco sounds perfectly accepting, which almost furthers Agott’s confusion. Leave it to Coco to somehow land on the wrong conclusion, but not judge it anyways.
“No, Coco, I am a girl– but you would truly kick me out of your bed over that?”
“Yeah, you’d have to sleep on the floor. I can still hold your hand though.”
“Really?” Agott sounds baffled, causing Coco to turn a bit pink from embarrassment. She fiddles with her fingers.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. You aren’t a boy, you told me that.” Coco’s complete trust and acceptance in Agott’s words makes her want to cry, she has never not believed her. If Agott tells Coco something, she regards it as a complete truth, and doesn’t ask more. It’s all she could ever want from someone.
Coco taps her cheek with her fingertip again with her eyes slightly hazy, lost in thought.
“Though… Master Olly and Master Qifrey are both boys, right?” Agott turns her head towards Coco’s at the question, a bit lost on her point. The nerves she had inside her have disappeared, leaving an amalgamation of feelings Agott has for this endearing, ridiculous girl.
“Yes, yes they are, Coco. What’s your point?”
“They wear skirts too. Longer than even Richeh’s skirt… so I’m not too sure how I would change your uniform.” Coco’s bright eyes flicker back to Agott’s face, smiling shyly at the bewildered Agott. “Please, tell me exactly what you want?”
Agott wants to cry and laugh at the same time. She’s revealing intimate parts of her soul to Coco, things she hasn’t even whispered to her weighted owlcat, and Coco is showing her nothing but acceptance. It makes her wanna spin around in the sun, to bottle up this feeling of being seen and drink it on hard nights, then throw the bottle at all who saw her and refused to accept her.
“Of course I will.” Coco doesn’t point out how Agott’s voice is slightly choked-up, or how her hands quiver slightly. She uses the time Agott takes to regain her bearings to reach over Agott’s desk for a spare paper and pencil – she doesn’t know what would occur if she used her pen with conjuring ink on the tip. While Agott explains, Coco planned to draw a draft idea of what she describes.
“I… I was thinking of pants, like Tartah’s.” Agott is now hyper-focused on Coco’s face, originally to look for hints of judgement, but finds herself wanting to sob when she sees nothing but acceptance and focus. “But, more flowy, like our skirts. To still honor Master Qifrey.”
“Oh! Palazzo pants?” Coco’s eyes break away from the notes she was writing for the drawing to turn her head in Agott’s direction. Agott stutters at the sudden attention, especially with information she knows nothing about.
“I suppose…? Please know that I haven’t heard that word before, Coco.”
“Oh!” An embarrassed flush comes over Coco’s cheeks and nose again, and she turns her head back to face the paper. “Sorry… I got ahead of myself.” If Agott was any less strong-willed, she would shake Coco by the shoulders because of how cute she’s being. But she holds it together.
“It’s alright. But yes, whatever… ‘palazzo pants’ are. I trust you as my seamstress, Coco.” Agott doesn’t say it any less differently than how she usually talks, but Coco feels herself go weak in the knees. If she wasn’t already seated, she would’ve fallen over. Something about Agott acknowledging her as a seamstress, and referring to her as specifically Agott’s seamstress, makes her want to scream into a field of flowers.
Now with a clear idea, Coco returns to sketching, and a quiet silence falls over them. Broken by Coco again, with a question asked with the same carefulness one would handle precious crystal wine glasses.
“If I’m allowed to ask… why don’t you wanna look like a traditional girl, and more like a boy, if you aren’t a boy?” Coco doesn’t look at her, and this is purposeful. Coco knows all the things that can overwhelm Agott, and eye contact during a vulnerable moment has turned out to be one of them.
Agott knew this question was coming, but she still can’t help but feel a pit in her stomach form when it comes. Coco has been nothing but accepting so far, and she knows Coco well enough to know that this will continue being the case, but she still can’t help but feel fear. She doesn’t wanna be judged for how she feels in the truest parts of her soul, and this admission brings about the chance of it happening. She knows it won’t, but fear still holds her on a short leash.
“You can ask, Coco. It’s just… a feeling.” Agott shrugs a bit, pretending to be unbothered with how bad her explanation was. She knows it doesn’t go into it, but how do you conceptualize a feeling like this into words?
“A feeling?” Coco doesn’t stop sketching, the sound of pencil against paper filling in the gaps between their words. Agott wishes she wasn’t as kind and accepting as she is, she wishes Coco was angrier. Agott can handle anger, she has no clue what to do with her acceptance.
“A feeling. You told me once you have your hair in a bob because the feeling of hair on your neck gives you goosebumps. It’s like that feeling.” Agott feels more proud with this explanation, but it doesn’t cover as much as she hopes it would. Coco will have questions, and Agott can only hope she will know the answer.
The simplicity of the conversation calms Agott down. Her hands don’t tremble at this feeling of pure vulnerability, and she can look at Coco normally – not hyperanalyze every twitch in her face. It’s nice, Agott thinks, it’s nice to be able to trust someone in this manner.
“I think I get it… so, when you see yourself in the current uniform, it gives you goosebumps. And feels gross, I think, because hair touching my neck also feels gross.” Coco’s eyes flicker to Agott’s for a mere moment, but it’s enough to have Agott hitch her breath. Being faced with Coco’s unwavering acceptance is flustering.
“Yes, yes, that’s exactly it. It was the same for my hair.” Agott can’t help the smile that forms on her face, she understands. Agott is handing Coco bits and pieces of an indescribable thing, and she is understanding it. She feels her fingers softly twitch, the feeling of happiness being too big for such a small body, her hands desiring to move to get it out. Agott allows herself to tap her fingers rhythmically against her legs.
“Oh! Yes! Your hair!” Coco nods, forming a picture of what Agott means in her mind. “I like how your hair looks, it suits you. I could never imagine you with hair like Tetia’s.” Someone who wasn’t Agott would think Coco was done with the conversation based on her words, but Agott can see a furrow in her brow. She’s still curious.
“Ah… thank you, Coco.” Agott feels her ears heat up at the sudden compliment, one she rarely gets. Her hair has been a staple of her appearance for two years, it’s rare to hear it mentioned now. Coco sets the pencil down, a very rough draft officially on the paper, but doesn’t give it to Agott for revisions yet.
“My… my mama–” Agott knows this isn’t the time, but a boulder of guilt crushes her at the mention of Coco’s mom. She talks about her mom with such a gentleness, like she believes any stronger mention would shatter the crystalized body of her. “–she said clothes are the most important thing to people.”
Agott wants to say something, grab her hand, anything when she hears the shakiness of Coco’s voice. Coco is still unable to mention her mom without grief taking over her, and Agott can’t blame her. Agott decides to leave it up to Coco, and as inconspicuously as possible, rests her hand on the desk, halfway between them. If Coco wants to grab onto Agott, she can.
Coco does, with a surprising swiftness. It reminds Agott of an owlcat pouncing on its prey, but her hands are too gentle to be claws. She holds Agott’s hand with both of her hands, and brings it up to her face like a prayer, her lips ghosting her finger for a few moments. When Coco regains her bearings, she settles their joined hands closer to her chest.
“Mama said… said that they are an extension of someone’s happiness, personality, and feelings.” Agott thinks Coco’s mom sounds a lot like Tetia, and hopelessly wonders how the three apprentices would’ve fit in Coco’s home if they ever met. She gives Coco a subtle squeeze of the hand, one that’s returned a moment after. “If you wear clothes you like, you’ll be happy, and people will like you more because- because the happiness that comes off of you ripples out. Like when you throw a stone in a pond. Your clothes are the stone, and the ripples are the happiness coming off of you and changing everyone else.” Coco meets Agott’s eyes, and she can see how wet Coco’s eyes are with unshed tears. She lets out a wet, pitiful laugh. “...Sorry, it sounded cooler when she said it.”
Agott shakes her head, and lets the moment be for a few seconds. Then, she reaches her other hand out to join this four-hand-handholding thing they’ve started. It looks silly, but it makes Coco happy.
“I couldn’t call it ‘cool’, but it was very gracious of you to tell me your mother’s wisdom. Thank you, Coco.” Agott smiles, trying mainly to reassure Coco and convey the deep sense of joy in her tummy. It feels like she’s had a warm meal and then was tucked into bed and given her weighted owlcat. The one Master Qifrey gave her, that she hides under her blankets during the day from embarrassment. The one that makes her feel like the world is alright, and puts all her pieces back where they should be.
Agott should’ve expected something from Coco, but she still gasps when Coco scurries over to her and wraps her arms around Agott. One leg is thrown over her lap, with all of her weight concentrated on one leg. It makes Agott pause for a few moments, before wordlessly adjusting Coco to sit equally on both of her legs. A silent gesture, but it makes Coco squeeze her tighter, and makes it easier on Agott to loosely hug her back.
Agott doesn’t know how long it’s been, but Coco eventually leans back so she can look at Agott properly, her hands on Agott’s shoulders while Agott’s hands are on her waist. Agott stifles a grumble at how this position has made Coco noticeably taller than her.
“Anyways! My point was that I’ll make your uniform the way you want it. Because it will make you happy, and your happiness will make the whole atelier feel happier.” Coco stops for a few moments, a soft blush starting from her nose and extending to her cheekbones, saying the next words quieter. “Especially me, Agott. Your happiness… will make me the happiest, since I know that my work is what made you happy.”
Agott isn’t eloquent with words, even if she talks properly to everyone and is consistently found reading. She can string together sentences about spells and magic with ease, but her feelings are a scary territory. The words she wants to say regarding her feelings are stuck in a big, clumsy loop in her stomach, and get caught in her throat.
So she uses actions, even as her brain wants her to freeze up. Agott believes that Coco deserves her bravery.
Agott slides her hand up from Coco’s waist to her shoulder, gently tugging on her arm to urge her to let go of her shoulder. When Coco does, Agott grasps her hand in hers, with the same gentleness she would handle a newborn scalewolf – if she ever came across one. She takes a deep breath, before bringing Coco’s hand to her mouth, placing a featherlight kiss on each of her knuckles. Agott made sure to grab her dominant hand, the one that would be working away on a new uniform for Agott.
When Agott reaches Coco’s thumb, she uses the chance to move her hand from Agott’s mouth to cradle her cheek. Coco is sitting pin-straight, a clear nervousness wracking throughout her body. She then presses a kiss on the corner of Agott’s mouth quickly, so much so that Agott is unsure that it truly happened until she sticks her tongue out and tastes peaches. Coco leans back again, then starts to scramble away from Agott.
“I’ll– I’ll get started on it right away!” Then Coco is off, scurrying back to her own bedroom. Agott sees the materials on her study desk, notably not in her bedroom, and giggles to herself. This girl will be the death of her.