Chapter Text
The ache that had been grinding into Olruggio’s shoulders beneath the weight of his travel pack vanished the moment his boots crossed the threshold. Stepping into the warm, familiar air of the atelier, he let the heavy door click shut behind him and simply closed his eyes, inhaling a deep breath of home. He was immediately hit with the comforting smell of something simmering on the kitchen stove. A rich, savory scent of caramelized chrysanthonions and cooked meat drifted down the hall, instantly making his stomach rumble. He had timed his return perfectly.
Before he could even unbuckle the brass clasp of his cloak, the quiet of the entryway was utterly shattered. A sudden flurry of footsteps echoed against the stone, and two colorful blurs barreled down the hallway.
Tetia reached him first, practically skidding across the floor, her face alight with an infectious energy that Olruggio, in his bone-deep exhaustion, couldn't quite fathom. Coco was right on her heels. The two girls collided with his middle hard enough to make his heavy satchel swing, their small hands clutching at his coat.
“Olruggio!!” Tetia exclaimed into his coat. “You were gone forever!”
“Two weeks.”
“Forever.”
Richeh appeared out of nowhere and positioned herself beside Coco with an expression that was, for Richeh, quite close to pleased. Agott poked her head in to see what was happening, waved, and went back to her room again.
“Alright, alright, let go of me, you little gargoyles,” Olruggio grumbled, though the gruffness in his voice was entirely ruined by the soft, involuntary smile tugging at his mouth. He patted Coco’s shoulder with one hand and ruffled Tetia’s hair with the other, disheveling one of her pigtails. Tetia protested loudly, while Richeh and Coco practically stole his bag to unburden him.
As the girls fussed over his luggage, another figure stepped out of the kitchen, wiping his slender hands on a tea towel. Qifrey’s gaze met his, soft and brimming with a gentle adoration. He was wearing his Naakiwan robe, the tassels around his belt dancing with every step he took.
“Welcome home, Olruggio,” Qifrey said softly, closing the distance. He didn’t crowd him the way the girls did, but the warmth radiating from his smile was palpable. “You’re just in time. Dinner is nearly ready.”
The sight of his dear friend was that final click into place, the cause for Olruggio to fully feel the last bits of tension between his shoulders dissolve.
Coco immediately launched into an explanation of what they had been preparing in the kitchen; braised frillram mutton with watercress and carapace yam on the side. Apparently, it had been her first time using both a water and a fire sigil to steam-tenderize the meat.
While he listened, Olruggio hung his cloak and followed the warm smell of dinner into the kitchen. The girls trailed after him like a row of ducklings. He scanned the pots out of habit, assessed that Qifrey had everything well in hand, and lifted the lid of the larger one just long enough to attempt to steal a small slice of meat with one of the small skewers on the counter before anyone could object. He got the back of a tea towel across his knuckles for the trouble, a reflex from Qifrey without so much as a turn of his head.
The girls chattered excitedly as they threw themselves into the task of setting the table. Coco took the plates and cutlery while Richeh, having deposited Olruggio’s pack at the foot of the stairs for him to deal with later, set about the remaining bread from this afternoon’s lunch with a knife. Tetia was nominally helping and principally providing commentary. Agott came back down when she heard the final clatter of the table being laid, took her seat, and said nothing, though her joining them at the table instead of taking her meal with her to her room was always a sign of her being in a particularly good and social mood.
“Well, let’s dig in!” Qifrey announced, smiling so bright the skin around his eyes creased.
Olruggio didn’t need to hear that twice. The food was, as always, amazing. The frillram mutton was impossibly tender, falling apart at the mere touch of his fork after hours of slow braising, its rich, savory fats perfectly balanced by the chrysanthonions and a heavy hand of crushed garlic. The carapace yams soaked up the flavorful fatty broth like sponges, their dense centers melting on his tongue. In terms of Qifrey’s cooking, it was a fairly straightforward meal, but after two weeks of being offered the finest dining the kingdom of the Mudrock Canyon had to offer, Olruggio found himself savoring these thick, rustic slices of meat far more than any noble delicacy.
“What was the job?” Tetia asked once her interrogation of what the Duke of the Canyon was like had wrapped up. “Did you make a flying castle? A contraption that makes you talk to animals? A magical wardrobe that never runs out of dresses?”
Olruggio snorted. “Nah, nothing so exciting. It was a climate-regulating system for the Duke’s greenhouse. Exotic flowers, weird trees, other stuff that crawled around, all needing to be kept at a precise temperature.”
“Sounds like a few heating contraptions would do the trick,” Agott commented.
“Yeah!” Coco nodded. “Did you create more of those captured fire stones? They were so pretty!”
“Nah, nobles don’t like it when they find out you’ve used contraptions anyone could buy. He wanted something specifically designed for him. Besides, he didn’t just want heating when it was cold. He wanted cooling when it was hot too.”
He pulled a stub of charcoal from his pocket and leaned over the table, sketching quick diagrams onto the back of a worksheet while the girls, sans Agott, crowded shoulder to shoulder around him.
“You girls haven’t gotten to logical spellcasting yet, which believe me, is gonna be a pain. Basically, instead of the spell instantaneously going into effect the second the circle is closed, you create conditions. Logic chains. For that, you need to draw specific signs, like these,” he explained, demonstrating, “which apply to nested spells within the larger spell. Done right, you make a spell that can sorta make decisions.”
“So the spell just… waits?” Coco asked.
“Sits there doing nothing until its condition is satisfied, yes. Kinda like how a nested spell will wait until the outer circle is completed; it can sense that some specified condition is not yet met.” He drew a smaller ring within the first, this one closed. “But one condition was never enough. The system also needed to know whether the ventilation shutters were open or closed — no sense running a heating sigil while warm air is venting straight out through the roof. So now you have two reading-rings, and the bridging signs between them have to account for both at once.” He sketched out the more complex fork required to join all three elements. “Temperature low and shutters closed. Then, and only then, the sigil fires. Just had to inscribe that in all the vents. And shutters. And there were more conditions than that, but I won’t bore you with those details.”
None of the girls, especially Agott, looked bored in the slightest, but that was only because this spellscribing method was novel. Soon enough they’d groan at the mention of it.
“All that for flowers,” Richeh said.
“Very expensive flowers, probably.” They’d looked expensive, at least, though he wasn’t the expert. Qifrey was the one that knew the name of every flower that grew in the Downs; Olruggio just knew the ones that were edible, and barely that.
“Was it at least interesting? As a job?” Coco asked.
He waved his hand. “Eh. Fine. Would’ve been better if the requests didn’t constantly come with annoying updates.”
“Then why take the commission?” Agott asked, without looking up from her plate.
Olruggio shrugged. “I prefer not to deal with nobles at all, but a job of this magnitude from a client this noteworthy pays extremely well. Figured it meant I could cop out of all other commission requests for a few months.”
“How much did it pay?” Tetia asked.
Before Qifrey could tell her that it was impolite to ask adults about finances, Olruggio tossed out the number.
Stunned silence greeted him in response.
Olruggio blinked, looking around. Coco looked like she had just seen a dragon crash through the ceiling. Tetia’s jaw was hanging open. Even Agott just stared, though she recovered quickest, crossing her arms tighter with a low, impressed whistle.
Richeh looked genuinely distressed. “Mister Olruggio, that’s more money than some people make in a year…”
Olruggio frowned slightly. “Well, yes. I do very specialized work. And to the nobles I work with it’s pocket change.” Then he made the mistake of looking across the table at Qifrey.
Qifrey was staring at Olruggio with an expression Olruggio genuinely could not place in twenty-odd years of knowing the man; not his careful neutrality, not his gentle bewilderment, not the concentrated look he wore untangling a difficult problem. His mouth had come open, slightly. His one visible eye had gone quite round.
“Olruggio,” he said, lowering his bowl of tea. “You never told me it was that much.”
“What do you mean, I never told you?”
“You said we were doing well, with my teacher’s stipend and your commissions earnings.”
“And we are doing well.”
“I thought you meant moderately well. Comfortable.”
Olruggio stared at him for a long second. “You really don’t look at the account books at all, do you?”
Qifrey smiled sheepishly in a way that said no, not really, is that bad.
Olruggio rubbed a hand over his face. At some point tonight he was absolutely sitting Qifrey down with the account books and forcing him to learn how much money actually passed through this house. Because apparently the man had been wandering around under the impression they survived entirely on optimism and magically-preserved soup.
Because maintaining this idyllic little countryside workshop actually cost money. Considerable money. Food, clothing, tools, repairs… Plus, he put a considerable amount to the side in case it was ever needed for a future emergency. He had every last bit of confidence in the four girls and that they’d turn out to be great witches, but ill luck could befall anyone, and it was nice that the two of them had the resources to cast a support net in case it would ever be needed. Not to mention the payments Olruggio still sent to his former master in Ghodrey. Retired witches from the Great Hall were traditionally supported by their former apprentices. Though in Beldaruit’s case, every attempt Olruggio made to send the old Wise One money in Qifrey’s name somehow resulted in the exact same pouch mysteriously reappearing in their sitting room a day later.
“We’re rich?” Tetia exclaimed. She had been sitting with this information for approximately thirty seconds, which was about her limit. “We’ve been rich?” She pushed back from the table. “Master Olly.” She pointed at him, scandalized. “Last month, when I asked if I could have that embroidered skirt from the market in Kalhn, you said—”
“I said you didn’t need any new clothes. Which is true.”
“You said we had a budget.”
“We do have a budget. A budget is just—” But he had already lost control of the conversation. The other girls had stars in their eyes and were on a whole different plane altogether, unable to hear his arguments.
“We could buy a whole bakery,” Coco whispered in awe.
“I would very much like a new writing desk,” Richeh added.
“I suppose this means we can afford that advanced textbook I’ve been wanting,” Agott murmured.
“And I want more link rings! Last year in Ezrest I saw this pair that created a fountain of sparkles!” Tetia was not losing steam. Olruggio had to nip this in the bud, and quick.
He groaned, burying his face in his hands. “If I let you buy every shiny thing you see, this atelier would look like a magpie’s nest in a week! I have to keep you girls grounded. I’m not spoiling you rotten.” They already had Qifrey to do that for them. Turning them into little materialists on top of everything else would help nobody.
Tetia looked at Coco. Coco looked at Richeh. Some kind of rapid wordless negotiation passed between the three of them.
“Apprentice huddle time!” Coco declared, and the three of them jumped off their chairs and scuttled to the corner of the room, waiting for Agott to join them. Agott let out a long sigh, finished her last bite, and left the table to step into the huddle, putting her head with the rest of them. They started debating in hushed tones.
From the table, Qifrey watched the huddle with open fascination, chin propped on one hand. “Should we be concerned?”
“I’m concerned,” Olruggio said flatly.
The girls tightened their circle further. After a clockmark or so, they stepped back, looking determined.
“Master Olruggio, we’ve reached consensus,” Tetia said, back ramrod straight and her hands folded behind her back like some military commander. “We have decided to forgive you for hiding that we’re rich.”
Olruggio almost argued against that, but he was too amused by the theater the four girls were putting on. “Well, that’s a relief.”
“However, we have negotiated a condition,” Richeh said solemnly.
“Next time we go to Kalhn,” Coco started, carefully, chickening out on demanding and asking instead, “could we each pick one thing that we’d like? Just the one?”
Olruggio looked at her. She had her hands folded and was wearing an innocently hopeful expression. Then at Richeh, who was looking at the middle distance with elaborate neutrality. Tetia was starting to sweat a little. Agott had her palm pressed to her cheek and just raised both her eyebrows at him.
Olruggio rubbed the back of his neck, feeling thoroughly cornered by a bunch of pre-teens.
“Fine, fine. One thing,” he said. “Something you’ve actually thought about. Not something you saw in a window five clockmarks prior. And within reason. If anyone brings me a solid gold cauldron, I’m melting it down.”
The sound that came out of Tetia should not have been possible from a person her size. Coco and Richeh grabbed each other’s hands with joy, and even Agott allowed a small, satisfied smirk to grace her lips.
“Thank you, Master,” Richeh said, a tiny, genuine smile breaking through her usually stoic face. Coco and Tetia echoed the gratitude and attacked him with yet another hug.
Olruggio huffed, extricating himself from the tangle of limbs and cloaks, grumbling under his breath about rowdy children. He adjusted his tunic, strictly telling himself that he only agreed because this commission had truly been an exceptional windfall.
It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he couldn’t say no to them. Not at all.