Chapter Text
Agott told herself that she needed her cloak patched up. It was true that it was worn in certain areas, holes starting to form and the ends becoming frayed thread—she hadn’t had it fixed since she was thirteen, so it’d been over a year, then. These were all reasonable justifications for going to the tailor.
Agott didn’t have a good reason for traveling so far south of the atelier, not when Kalhn was much closer and had a perfectly fine tailor. She couldn’t excuse it, so she just went.
Finding the place was difficult; she got so embarrassed that she had the chariot let her out and then walked a good half-mile on foot until she reached her destination. Even if she had known the way by heart, she’d not let a chariot get that close.
If anyone knew where she went, they might stop her—so she just went.
A bell rung as Agott entered the shop. She wrinkled her nose at the dust, looked around. Colorful tapestries overhung every inch of the walls, save for two windows that allowed in light. Rolls of fabric leaned against every flat surface. There was a cluttered counter, as well as what looked like a seamstress’ work station. Maximalist in every sense of the word, a place like this would normally be overwhelming enough that Agott would leave.
“Hi! Can I help you?”
Coco straightened up from behind the counter, a bundle of fabric and boxes balanced between her arm and chin. Her hair looked longer than it’d been when Coco still lived at the atelier, but Agott found that it still looked the same in sunlight. That much would never change, then.
“Cloak repair,” Agott said.
“Of course! I can take a look at it.”
“Thanks.” Her voice was weaker than she meant. She always sounded more confident in her own head.
As Agott stepped closer and handed over her cloak, she met Coco’s eyes. Coco didn’t look at her with any sort of recognition. This was what Agott had known to expect.
After examining the cloak, turning it over and over in her nimble fingers, Coco nodded diligently. “Yes, okay, I can take care of this right now—it should just be a few patches here and there, some fraying on the ends… yes, very easy,” she murmured to herself—and while this tendency to talk to herself had bothered Agott before, right now it was the very thing Agott had traveled to hear. She didn’t mind it so much, now that she didn’t hear Coco’s half-voiced rambling throughout the day and as she fell asleep. She didn’t sleep very well nowadays.
“That works,” Agott said. “I don’t mind waiting.”
Coco flushed as though she were about to draw a spell, but instead of her pen and paper, she only retrieved a sewing kit and some patches from a drawer. She was eager in her hand stitching, tucking blonde strands behind her ear every time they fell across her eyes.
“Do you see many witches come through this village?” Agott asked.
She watched Coco’s eyes widen, but her voice stayed even. Oddly restrained, like she’d trained herself out of her unbridled enthusiasm. “Oh. Ah, not too many.”
“So this is the first cloak you’ve repaired.”
“Yes—but don’t worry!” Coco began to stammer, “it’s not too different from regular tailoring. At least, I hope…”
“I’m sure it’s in good hands,” Agott said, her own face heating up.
She knew she was pushing buttons she shouldn’t, inching too close to topics that would be dangerous to bring up. Still, under the circumstances, it was easier to offer reassurance, to offer something earnest to her.
“Whether it’s a witch’s cloak or not, the stitches are the same. You use the same techniques for any garment, right?"
Coco grinned. “And I did just learn a new one from my mother,” she said, and she started describing it to Agott in detail, as though she hoped to make her a tailor’s apprentice. Agott found herself listening, as though she could.
Leaning this way and that, Coco was lackadaisical in how she moved. She tilted her head, or her shoulders shifted oddly but she showed no discomfort. Her face lit up as she talked, her heart on her sleeve, as well as every scrap of fabric in the shop. Coco seemed unaware of herself, equal parts reckless and ethereal.
Of course she is, Agott thought. These things would always be the same.
Agott could do plenty of advanced magic now—she’d had years to practice in Coco’s absence—but nothing could’ve mesmerized her more than Coco’s needle and thread at work. Watching the other girl, she was less jealous than she’d been; she was twice as sad.
“Oh, shoot,” Coco said. She’d fumbled something on the cloak’s hem and had stopped, backtracking each stitch she’d made thus far.
Agott watched Coco’s brow crease as she got frustrated. She looked like she might cry, and she looked twelve all over again, and Agott felt twelve, too.
“Coco, it’s okay,” she said, grabbing Coco’s trembling wrist. “It doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s better than I could’ve ever sewn. I can't sew—that's why I brought it to you."
Coco’s hands did stop shaking at that. Agott felt like she should let go, so she did. After that, she kept her eyes on Coco’s hands instead of her face. Looking at her face only made Agott weak to her smile, at the mercy of her frown—so it was better to avert her eyes. She felt like she had spoken too much. When Coco still lived at the atelier, she'd been the more talkative of the two—and Agott wanted desperately to maintain that, to stay in that reality for as long as she stood in the clothes shop.
When she was finished, Coco folded the cloak with more care than she’d been handed it and set it on the counter.
“Thank you,” Agott said, and she wondered if her words had helped at all.
“Of course! It was my pleasure, really. Say, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Hm?”
Agott did look up then, and Coco wouldn’t exactly meet her eyes. But she could see it—see her cheeks becoming damp, eyes a little red without warning, like she hadn't mean to cry, like it was happening involuntarily.
“How did you know my name? When I don’t think I told you it?”
Agott panicked. The rest of what happened was a physical response, memorized by rote, carried out in fight or flight. It was how she leaned forward against the counter, removing her pointed cap and uncovering her glyph and sliding it down on Coco’s head. She cradled the back of Coco’s neck as she forced her down.
Her hair was still as soft as it had always been, and Agott thought, I'm sorry I can't, I'm sorry, I can't, as she lowered Coco onto the floor and pressed palm to forehead—until she was sure it was done.
Agott righted her cap and left her payment on the counter. She took her patched-up cloak and left, already wishing it would fray again.