Chapter Text
A child's boredom knows no bounds.
With her mother leaving the workshop momentarily to buy materials, Coco was left alone to her own vices within the confines of her room. Waiting, quietly waiting, the silence everlasting, an occasional breeze blowing through the window, the only sound being the soft rustle of fabric-
Okay Coco was seriously bored out of her mind, seven year old's need constant stimulation! Er, she thinks so, at least. And she knows herself better than anyone else should.
Determined to cure her boredom the girl hopped out of bed and searched through her room. Maybe she could practice more straight lines on fabric? Oh! Or she could make a dress design maybe? Or she could make a pillow fort? Blanket tent? Make a 'potion'? Uh...clean her room after she just made a huge mess? All of those things were only temporary joys and honestly didn't give her as much wonder as a very special book, unfortunately that special book was in a drawer in the attic above her room and she was unable to reach it because the ladder was up too high and her mom obviously wasn't around to get it. She would get her dad to help her if he wasn't absent, as her mother said. Sadly it seemed all she had to do was wait.
Chairs wobbled on top of each other, clearly they were not made to be stacked like this. Piles of books were put at the bottom for a kind of stabilization as Coco slowly climbed up the shaky pile of wood leading up to the ladder and she would hold onto chairs for dear life when they wobbled too much like she wouldn't just fall with them. If she just reached a little higher than she would be able to grab onto-
"WAAH!!" The child tumbled down the unsurprisingly unsteady tower and landed on the wood with a thud beside other fallen objects. The room was even more of a mess now, and Coco was grazed and in so much pain she could cry, but she wouldn't give up now! If chairs didn't work...maybe the desk might!
The wooden desk was heavy and the pile of junk Coco had on top of it probably didn't help but she didn't want to remove any of it, it was all placed super specifically to her. The drag across wooden floorboards was slow and loud like it might end up ringing in her ears later but that didn't really matter, eventually she got it somewhere underneath the ladder and ever so carefully she climbed up it. To her disappointment she was still too short to reach it even on her tip toes so she jumped up and down a few times before she finally succeeded in grabbing it. Feeling proud of herself she grinned brightly and tried pulling it down with all her strength but she was never really one to do much more than cutting fabric and running around so her strength was severely lacking . With a final yank of all her might that sent her tumbling to the ground, she finally managed to pull it down at the expense of her butt being in pain though it was little in comparison to the joy she would feel when she got to look at that book again!
Ever so carefully she climbed the ladder, squinting in the darkness that was the attic as she tried to differentiate hidden shapes. If she were correct than the magic picture book should be in...a chest? No, on top of a box most likely, actually she wasn't really too sure now that she really thought about it. After a few minutes of searching through boxes and abandoned dirty sheets she finally found her greatest treasure, the magic picture book! One of the greatest thing she has ever bought with her allowance~! The drawings inside really did feel like magic so it was such a shame that whenever she used the wand...well nothing happened, because she wasn't a witch.
Whilst trying to get back down to her room she mistook how far one of the steps on the ladder was and went tumbling down once again, her book and wand land on the wooden floor boards loudly. Feeling rather pouty about the fall but still wanting to look at her favourite book she turned to pick it up and paused. The wand...was no longer so much of a wand, the purple orb had fallen off and was leaking ink into the floor so Coco fixed it upright and where the orb had been connected was now the sharp end of a fountain pen. Curiously she picked up the pen and twirled it in her hand while glancing at the ink stained floor, the dark liquid turning almost blood red around the edges because of the wood she would assume. Or perhaps it was because there was blood in the ink itself? No, no surely not, that's just the paranoia of a seven year old of course. Honestly she isn't even too sure why that thought came to mind, why would there ever be blood in ink anyway? The answer is there wouldn't of course.
She cleared things off of her desk despite her earlier reluctance and propped the book up nicely before grabbing a piece of parchment and resting it on the table. She began copying the images but they were just a little too complex for her so the people looked wonky and didn't capture the magical essence nearly as well as the original illustrator of the book. In the top corner of the page she noticed an interesting symbol, a pretty symbol, so naturally she tried copying that down too. The circle was wonky and so was just about every other curved line but for the arrows, well those were absolutely perfect because every single straight line she's been drawing for the past few years has been absolutely perfect under mother's supervision. It seems being a seamstress really paid off! She was rather disappointed that nothing happened so she just slumped forward on the desk before yelping and jumping back.
The ink had dripped from the tip of the pen and completed the outer circle she had completely glossed over, and when it did an explosion of lights erupted from the paper and stayed present for a few seconds before going away. Golden eyes sparkled in awe before she happily jumped around her room squealing in delight, unbelieving of the fact she really just cast magic!!!
Flipping through the pages she saw there was one of those odd symbols in the top corner of every single one so she carefully began copying most of the spells onto paper with much difficulty. Really, curved lines had never particularly been her specialty but the more she drew them the more...straight they became? No that wasn't the right word at all, but Coco was far too immersed in the magic of drawing right now to actually care for the right word. It didn't take long for her floor to be covered in scattered spell pages harboring all kinds of different spells like a wind spell that tickled her face, a fire spell that charred her pillow, a water spell that completely soaked her, and redrew the light spell several more times because it was just too pretty for her to simply leave at one but that didn't mean she found the rest grotesque.
She had determined that neater lines made them last longer and the size of the spell would determine the strength, that part she figured out when she got flash banged essentially when leaning too close to the paper and drawing the light spell a bit larger than before. She needed to pause her drawing for a few minuets whilst her eyes recovered. Coco spent the afternoon trying to learn the logistics of using spells despite barely understanding and it was only her mother trying to open her door that made her once again aware of her surroundings.
"Oh, mom! Look, look!" The girl explained happily as she bounded to her mother, bouncing on the spot and holding the incomplete spell drawn on paper. Her mother laughed softly at her enthusiasm and ruffled her messy green hair lovingly with one hand while the other held a bag of fabrics.
While lunch was being cooked, and even while eating lunch, Coco simply found it impossible to stop talking about her favourite subject that technically wasn't even a subject. She was more than eager to show her mom all of the drawings she made and said that magic really was more simple than she thought and nobody is born a witch. Her mother didn't believe it obviously and just dismissed her daughter's passion with a smile and a sarcastic "Oh really?" Whilst she gave Coco another slice of bread beside her vegetables. She had tried continuously to tell Coco that it simply wasn't possible to BECOME a witch, but of course she couldn't force her young daughter to believe something she didn't want to so she just continued playing along.
In a place unknown to Outsiders or Pointed Caps where the air felt wrong and rocks were aligned too perfectly and trees slowly withered, a certain with with an eye mask chuckled darkly while tossing a vial of conjuring ink in the air and back down to his hand, letting the cycle repeat. They had a feeling the seed they planted as of recently had sprouted much, much sooner than they had anticipated it ever would and they simply couldn't complain now could they? They'd wait until the seed had grown just enough for him to take...The moment someone wasn't protecting the seed they could gently pluck it from it's home and return it to where it truly belonged. He knew the seed wouldn't complain at least, not when she loved magic so.