Chapter Text
The other raven-haired man’s warm, muscled arms wrapped around his narrow waist from behind, as comforting as the embrace of a celestial star descended from the heavens.
— An excerpt from The Duke’s Secret Passion by Polly Periwinkle
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Over the next few days, the Courtship Conspiracy developed frustratingly little. The girls brainstormed ideas from locking Master Qifrey and Olly together in a cupboard (“I don’t think Master Qifrey would like it that much,” Agott pointed out), to drawing up a huge rain spell to prompt a passionate kiss in the rain (“Master Qifrey hates rain,” Richeh reminded). The apprentices were spent.
The thing was, Coco herself had rather limited experience in the romance department. She’d never met her father, so she couldn’t even really tell how a married couple was supposed to act. Tetia kept saying that Master Qifrey and Olruggio acted like a married couple.
Coco wondered what married couples were even supposed to do. Did they cook for each other, like Master Qifrey and Olly did? Well, really Qifrey did most of the cooking while Olruggio laboured in his workshop all day. Master Qifrey was always fretting on about how Olruggio was overworking himself. There were times when he’d find Olruggio on the couch, and rather than shooing him away he’d tell the girls to keep their voices down and drape a blanket over Olly’s snoring form.
Was that something husbands did? Coco wasn’t sure.
All she knew was that she had the vague feeling that when her own mother and father had gotten married, they had her, so maybe babies had something to do with it.
She decided to ask Master Qifrey over morning tea.
He’d made some turnip sandwiches for all the apprentices and they sat by the table eating them together.
“Master Qifrey?” Coco asked in between bites of bread, “how are babies made?”
Qifrey appeared to regard this question for a moment. He looked around at his apprentices, expressions ranging from genuine curiosity to indifference. It seemed as though he’d have to give The Talk.
Right. He’d prepared for this. He’d never done it before, per se, but he’d read up about it and all the sorts of things you were supposed to say when explaining it gently to children.
He’d even rehearsed the speech with Olruggio once. He suddenly remembered that scene clearly in his mind — the two of them sitting at this exact same table, Qifrey himself fretting over piles of educational material. It had been the night before Agott’s arrival.
Qifrey had been a bit of an anxious mess then. It had occurred to him in a sudden stroke of panic that he was utterly unprepared to be a teacher. Olly, bless him, had assured him endlessly that he would be fine and that he would be there every step of the way to help Qifrey.
Anyway, Qifrey had found a book, and the book went somewhere along the lines of How To Explain The Joys Of Baby-Making To A Small Child In An Age-Appropriate Manner or something or the other, and he’d opened it and started reading. He’d practised aloud with Olly who’d cracked some awfully crude joke that had made Qifrey laugh and laugh until it hurt.
Now, staring at the expectant faces of his apprentices, Qifrey found that he’d forgotten everything he was meant to say.
“Well,” he improvised somewhat stiffly, attempting to regather his thoughts and resume his usual teacherly air, “when two people love each other very, very much—”
Coco perked up. “Does that mean you and Master Olly will have a baby?”
Qifrey spat out his turnip.
He hunched over his plate and coughed violently, face growing a dangerous shade of tomato.
The girls grew alarmed.
“Oh no!— Master Qifrey!” Coco flew instantly into panic mode. “Um— Is there anything I can do! The— uh— the hammer manoeuvre thingy!”
“Heimlich,” Agott corrected urgently, and she got up and cracked her knuckles.
Qifrey, still choking, held up a palm and tried to gesture frantically to the girls that he was completely fine, which his face was saying otherwise because it had gone from tomato to plum coloured.
Agott went around to Qifrey’s side of the table, positioned herself carefully behind him and drove her fists into his stomach.
Somewhere amid the haze of panic Coco thought, boy, Agott can sure punch. It was kind of cool.
Then her anxiety spiked again because Qifrey just coughed harder, face purple and white as a turnip, tears springing from his eyes.
That was when the front door opened and Olruggio ambled into the atelier, whistling cheerily to himself.
He’d been struggling with his commissions all day, feeling dreadfully blocked, and had decided to procrastinate and go for a walk. (He’d told himself it was necessary to clear his head.)
He’d been in a good mood as he’d walked and had even mused philosophically to himself because what do you know, perhaps frolicking in nature did have a positive effect on the human soul after all. He’d come across a huge field of flowers and had even picked a generous bundle for the girls, because Tetia had mentioned liking flowers. (He’d also gotten some lovely forget-me-nots for Qifrey as well, because he was a nice guy that way.)
Perhaps he could make a flower-growing spell. Qifrey would like that, he loved his garden.
Anyway, Olruggio’d returned to the atelier feeling remarkably content.
Which was why when he entered with a rare smile even a cheerful “Mornin’!” he was a little startled to see Qifrey choking over his plate by the dining table, Agott attempting to heimlich him in the most painful way possible (to be fair, her technique was impressive, if a little forcible), Coco fretting, Tetia crying, and Richeh trying to offer unhelpful suggestions.
Goddamn. How long had Olruggio been away from home for?
He dropped his flowers, trampling on them as he ran inside.
“Move aside, Agott,” Olruggio said. Then he wrapped his arms securely around Qifrey’s waist, balled his right hand into a fist and drove it in hard about two inches above the navel.
Qifrey coughed.
Olruggio did it again, and again, until he gave one final thrust (Qifrey let out a sort of loud gack sound), and a chunk of saliva-covered turnip flew out of Qifrey’s mouth and plopped into Richeh’s cup of marktea. Ew.
Olruggio’s arms were still wrapped around Qifrey’s waist, and he made no move to let go. He could feel Qifrey’s rapid heartbeat against his palm.
They were actually rather close, come think about it. Qifrey’s face was mere inches away from his own — a little red and breathless.
Thu-thud.
Was that Olruggio’s own pulse, hammering in his ears? Why was he sweating so much?
“Master Qifrey!” Coco cried, breaking the spell. Qifrey and Olruggio jolted apart with a start. “I’m so, so sorry! I d-didn’t mean to make you choke!”
The poor girl was half in tears, blaming herself like that.
Qifrey exhaled slowly and patted her on the head. “I’m quite alright, Coco. You’re not at fault at all, I should have been more careful with swallowing. I’m sorry for frightening you.”
Coco, surprising them all, hugged Qifrey, and then Tetia hugged him too. It was evident that the poor dears were slightly shaken by the whole choking-to-death episode. Richeh settled for patting Qifrey on the back. Even Agott got in on the hug, because despite her cool façade, she’d been rather worried about Qifrey. Much hugging and teary eyes followed.
After they’d all settled, Olruggio banned Qifrey from making turnip-related dishes for the foreseeable future (“I’m sorry Qifrey, but they seem right dangerous. I don’t think we should be cooking these, especially with the girls around.”) and then they sat the apprentices down and had a good and proper age-appropriate discussion about consent and baby-making and stuff.
It wasn’t until after the girls had been sent back to their rooms to recuperate (read: devise their next plan for the Courtship Conspiracy), that Olruggio suddenly remembered the flowers. He’d gotten so wrapped up with saving Qifrey’s life that he’d forgotten about them.
He quickly tried to whisk them out of view but it was too late.
“Olruggio?” Qifrey said. “What’s this?”
“Nothin’,” Olruggio lied pointlessly, because Qifrey could clearly see that he was holding a bunch of flowers. He changed tack. “You know how Tetia loves her flower crowns. There was a hold field of ‘em out there, so I just thought I’d just get some for the girls.”
“I see,” said Qifrey. “That’s awfully kind of you, Olly.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Olruggio was very interested in studiously gathering up the flowers and finding a vase to put them in for the time being. He paused for a moment, deliberating, then seized a handful of forget-me-nots from the top of the pile, turned around and shoved them into Qifrey’s chest. “Here.”
Qifrey caught them in his fingers, startled. “Are these for me?”
“I got some for everyone,” Olruggio inspected the wall behind him, “So it’s fair. Do what you want with them. And be more careful when you eat, alright? I can’t have you scaring the girls to half death and chokin’ like that.”
He stomped off to go to his workshop, the tips of his ears burning.
Later, when the girls emerged from their rooms to continue their lessons with Qifrey, they noticed that he had a sprig of soft blue flowers tucked behind his ear.
“I love your flowers, Master Qifrey!” Coco said.
Qifrey smiled back at her. “Thank you. They’re quite nice, aren’t they?”