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Agott has had three changes in her life. There are two things she has never been able to change.
Agott knows she’s okay. Good, even. She learns fast, works hard, and practices harder. Compared to the people of her atelier, she is skilled, and even beyond that boundary she could be considered skilled. But she’s just okay. She excels in things, that’s true, but she’s horribly incompetent at the very few things that truly matter.
Anyone can pick up a wand and conjuring ink, anyone can draw magic, and anyone can practice until their fingertips stain permanently. But a witch is not a witch if they lack everything that counts. Passion, for one. Creativity, for the next. That’s something she has only learned recently.
Passion, she used to have in droves. Now, she’s driven by a single end goal, and that’s all she has to say for herself, because if she thinks of it more, she will unlock something she has never prepared for. How does one even prepare for that? For realising oneself is not a brightly burning spark, but merely an ember driven by the wick leading to the bomb? Agott doesn’t know. She doesn’t know until she’s been taught it, that’s her comfort, that’s her way of magic.
She reads books, absorbs them, takes their magic, and moves on, aching for the next. She takes components of things and pieces them together, like a puzzle which is already inevitable, but she just has to find it. It’s messily cutting out segments of things already there and putting them together. That’s what Agott does.
But magic, magic shouldn’t be logical. Magic is creating something out of nothing, or forming something new out of things nobody would have ever expected were useful. It isn’t cold and straightforward, no, it’s loose and weird and slippery, always slipping out of her grasp right before she fully understands. And for Agott, who lives and breathes for instruction and guidance, creativity is not what she is good at, and so she will never be a good witch.
She was great, once. When she was smaller. When greatness meant nothing but perfect circles and straight lines, but was greatness nonetheless.
Then her type of false magic messed everything up. Without her creativity, without her passion, she couldn’t do something that was entirely her own, and even if she had created the spell herself, it would never have been hers, because sticking together stolen parts is still stealing.
She can remember the events so clearly— yet, she doesn’t want to think of it at all. Her long hair brushing against her sides as she was swept away, how she would hide and hide in swathes of black curly locks that looked so much like her mothers own, oh stars—the tears she cried, sparkling even in the dark, soaking her pillow and the soft things she once called comfort. Just like she always did, she ran and hid, and ended up as the first apprentice of a budding atelier with outcasts just like her. A small, grounded place, on an open plains, greeted by the open sky every day and night. That was the first change of her life, and she has always been grateful for it.
Ever since then, Agott has been reaching, reaching for her own place in the sky she used to inhabit. She has been reaching forwards towards her own past as a star. Oh, Agott hopes to orbit the earth and catch up with her past star, another perfect circle she would make by moving in a straight line across the round, round earth. Chasing her own tail leaves her rooted in a single, dizzying spot, and Agott never wants to leave the comfort of aching for something she can never attain.
Master Qifrey was kind. He held her hand and told her things would be okay, that she didn’t need to sparkle. But she knew that he sparkled too, shining like water meeting a sunrise on the horizon, a vision she only came to realise after she came to the topside. It was blinding. She’s sure Master Qifrey had it worse, with his sensitivity to light. But despite all of his setbacks, he still taught her everything, indulged her whims, and for a moment, for many, many moments, Agott felt like she could take a break to dream.
Not that she did, though. But she felt safe enough to, and that’s the part which means anything at all.
Master Qifrey didn’t hide. He saw her embers, and his eye must’ve hurt, but he never showed it, even while he lives with a star, a dying spark, and then the endless sunshine of summer, and then a glittering crystal which reflects all of it back into his face. He doesn’t hide, not like Agott did back then, hiding behind her hair and her past and books and magic. And because of him, Agott stopped hiding.
She cut her hair, cut away what used to remind people of her origin. She felt exposed. Her hair tickled her nape, and air brushed against her shoulders, and it felt weird and cold and new. But she looked at herself in the mirror, and Master Olly and Master Qifrey stood behind her, one with the same coloured hair as hers, and one with messy sticky-uppy hair like hers, respectively, and she wasn’t her mother’s daughter anymore.
It felt nice. She couldn’t hide anymore, but it meant she could be seen, and she knew that she had to be seen if she wanted to be a star again. She felt… relaxed. Good, again. Like time would pass, and she would change and grow, and become herself, instead of going through life like another book she needed to read and follow. That change was the second change that she felt meant something.
The third change was a girl.
Coco appeared, bright, ignorant, alight at anything magical, whether the mundane or mysterious. She was not competent, but she was creative, and passionate, and as she learned, she grew fast. At first a blazing candle flame that would grow to a bonfire, then to an unrestrained, reckless force of nature that would blot out all the other stars. Agott, willingly alongside her, had forgotten her past as a star, because Coco’s brilliance shined all of it away.
And while she forgot she had been a star, she also forgot that she was still embers, and for the first time since she left, she found herself dreaming, again. Wishing, again. Looking up at the stars in the night sky, at her Masters, at the people around her, and thinking of how far away they were. Quietly, in the most hidden part of her, she wondered how many steps it would take to reach those heights for the very first time.
The star, who had thought to become a mere ember, set ablaze once more and became a supernova.