Chapter Text
The lights shimmered with that certain glow. The type that would make anyone who looked at it suddenly grow warm with joy inside their heart. Just the proper type of light for a beautiful festival.
All around were noises of laughter, friendly chattering, and overall happy conversations. All except for one noise.
"Coco!?"
It's the sound of a mother who has lost her child. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to let her young daughter wander alone to buy roasted strawberries.
Unfortunately for this woman, no one seemed tempted to help her; the crowd of bystanders let their conversations drown out the sound of her distress.
Inevitably she gave up on yelling out her daughter's name. She finally decided that perhaps after such a long time it was best to get help from a knight. Even if she didn't trust them fully, what other choice did she have?
She had started walking back to her first destination where she was originally waiting for her child to return. She couldn't help but wonder where her child would go other than the roasted strawberry stand. Maybe she got distracted? After all this was what could only be described as an eye catching festival, especially for children.
She could feel herself developing a headache when she abruptly stopped in front of a dark stairwell. The longer she stared into the void, the stronger her urge to walk blindly into it grew.
There would really be no point in going down there. What could she even find? Dust? Bugs? Maybe even a pen if she was lucky. It would be a completely useless detour.
But something inside of this woman's gut just wouldn't let her turn away from it.
She decided to just give in to her instincts. One peek couldn't hurt.
As she descended down the stairs the comforting lights from the festival grew dim—replaced by the ominous darkness of the stairwell.
She had expected that all the brightness from outside would vanish completely by the time she reached the bottom. To her surprise, there was still one source of light that glowed from the ground.
The floor was producing the same kind of warmth from outside, except this glow highlighted the silhouette of a small child with green hair...no, not just any small child. That was her small child laying on the ground in front of her.
"Coco!" the woman exclaimed. She could feel her blood pressure rising as she dashed towards Coco.
Of course she was relieved to have found her, but then again she is also rightfully worried about what happened that caused her daughter to end up down here.
When she was able to reach Coco she immediately checked her pulse. After confirming that she was in fact alive she felt just a tad bit better.
Although she was usually a more realistic person, she leaned into a more delusional idea for a small moment. Maybe she just fell asleep down here? After all it was quiet, and the stones were even making a nice night light for her. Perhaps everything was alright!
She turned Coco's face in her direction and her breath halted. Every thought about nothing bad happening here suddenly vanished.
Her daughter's eye was replaced by a silver tree branch.
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Coco woke up reluctantly. She was unnaturally tired, as if she had already experienced a long day without much sleep following it. That fatigue was quickly eradicated as she remembered that today is the day of the festival!
She opened her eyes with a new sense of excitedness only for them to be assaulted by the extremely bright light. She could've sworn she felt something retract into her eye, but it was probably just a reaction to her assailant.
She squinted as she waited to adjust to the light. Did her mom somehow make the candles burn brighter? Now that she thought about it, why couldn't she see out of her left eye? Was it so much weaker than her right eye that it went completely blind due to this flame?
It took her an embarrassingly long time to realize that she wasn't in her house.
She finally decided to sit up and take in her environment. The room had rows of beds near her own, and yet she was the only one in the room. There was a faint variety of herbal scents in the air. When she looked out the window next to her she noticed that it was still night time?
Did she somehow sleep through the entire festival!? Her mom wouldn't let that happen right? No of course not... But what if her mom didn't have a choice? What if she had somehow entered into an eternal slumber—like the princesses in her picture books!? What if she's been asleep for millions of years and her mom died without her!?
No, that couldn't be the answer. Her body would be much bigger and wrinklier if that was the case.
Coco felt her face turn red from embarrassment. Her arms gripped onto the large book she was holding even tighter to her chest...wait. Was she holding onto the book this whole time?
She looked down at the book in her hands. It didn't seem interesting, just a brown cover with a gold button on it. She tried pushing the button, but once agin humiliated herself after she saw that it was meant to be unbuttoned instead of pushed. She quickly undid the button to access this unknown book. She hoped that there wouldn't be any words in it; she really hated reading with all of her big heart.
Luckily for her, her wish was granted. Inside this strange book were only pictures of what seemed to be figures with pointy caps. Each page accompanied by its very own intricate circle. The more she looked through it, the more inspired she became. All of these pictures were so pretty! She wanted to see even more pictures until she heard talking outside of the room.
She couldn't hear much, but she could hear a few voices.
".......seriously..........my daughter!?" a muffled voice yelled at someone. When she actually listened she realized that voice was clearly her mom's. But why did she sound scared?
"..sorry......................magic?" Coco caught another solemn voice. Sorry? About what? And what's magic?
Before she could even think about what sorry meant, two people stepped through the door into the room. One of the people was someone who she recognized as her mom. But the other person was a stranger. From what she has learned throughout her short life and due to the stranger's outfit, she concluded that this woman must be a doctor.
"Mom?" Coco called out much louder than she intended. Her mom hastily looked up from the ground and walked towards her at a speed she didn't even realize was possible to reach; the nurse followed behind her at a much slower speed. As her mom got closer the dried tears on her face became much more evident.
"Oh Coco. I'm so sorry this happened. This isn't your fault I promise you." her mom said in a comforting but wobbly tone. Coco didn't understand. There wasn't anything wrong was there?
"Did we miss the festival?"
"...What?"
"Are you crying because we missed the festival?"
"No, we were just at the festival, don't you remember?" Her mom spoke in a voice much more desperate than she's ever sounded before. Coco doesn't remember ever going to the festival. She's been looking forward to it for so long though, shouldn't she be able recall it?
The nurse suddenly chimed in. "On occasion the brain might block out memories due to traumatic events, this might be the case."
Coco's mom nodded in understanding. Unfortunately, Coco still had no idea what was going on. If she really had no memory of the festival, than didn't she just get scammed!? This can't be fair! There truly isn't any justice in this world!
While Coco was caught up in her thoughts she looked back at the window. Instead of immediately looking out it she looked at the reflection staring back at her.
Coco froze as she saw herself for the first time since she woke up. Where did her eye go? She reached her hand up to where her eye should be. While she expected to poke her eye, all she could feel was a branch.
Her mom noticed her fearful expression and gently pulled Coco's hand away from her missing eye. With that action, Coco snapped out of her trance for the moment and tried to distract herself with the adults' conversation.
"There isn't anything we can do about things we've never seen or heard about. I'm sorry to say, but I believe the best thing you can do for her is to bring her home. If anything bad happens you can bring her back." The nurse told her mom professionally.
After a bit of back and forth between the nurse and Coco's mom they eventually had to give up and go home.
As they stepped out into the darkness, Coco could see many different people cleaning up their stalls. She wondered if she ever got to eat her roasted strawberries...not like it would matter if she never remembered.
Once Coco looked down, she saw that ground beneath her feet was glowing. Once she saw that beam of light, all of her worries disappeared and were replaced with a childish joy.
"Mom look, I'm making the ground glow!" Coco giggled as danced around with her picture book.
"That's nice sweetie, but I think that's just magic."
"Magic?"
"Magic is...something only witches can do."
"Magic is the bestest! When I grow up I'm gonna become a witch that makes this world vibrant!"
"You can't just decide to become a witch, that's an ability you have to be born with. And anyways I'm sure your eye has something to do with magic."
"Well if my eye is magical I should be able to do magic right!"
"What, no that not what I—"
Coco ignored her mom as she twirled around happily. With each step she was creating magic! Sure it sucked that She doesn't remember the festival, but her and her mom were still together! She was so happy she could practically feel her delight traveling through her body. It was as if leaves were sprouting inside of her!
She barely noticed when she wasn't able to move any more. In fact, she couldn't even hear her mom shouting at her in terror. She was just so—
"Coco! Please!" Coco, at last, heard her mom's cries. At the sight of her mom's horrified face Coco shrunk down, the tree falling back into her eye.
Did she just turn into a tree? And did anyone other than her mom notice? Coco looked around to see if anyone saw what just happened, but no one stared back at her.
Everyone was somehow too engrossed in their own lives to even glance at the child turning into a tree. Does that make her and her mom the crazy ones? Do people usually turn into trees around here?
Coco was once again brought back into reality by her mom tightly hugging her.
She could hear her mumble, "The nurse said she didn't know anything about magic, I'm so sorry sweetie." Coco couldn've sworn she heard her mom crying, but she wasn't able to see her face.
The walk home after that was full of her mom apologizing for something that she didn't even remember. Even if she remembered she'd never blame her mom for what happened!
"I should've followed you and—"
"No mom! It was probably my fault! If I told you I was gonna be right back with the roasted strawberries I should've been back, but—"
"No Coco! I'm the adult here. It was my fault. Please don't ever blame yourself for this. Ok?"
"...Ok."
Coco would usually ball her eyes...or actually eye out by now. The only thing stopping her is that perfect magical light beneath her feet.
At least she can count on that!
Or not.
That one beam of hope just disappeared from underneath her, and suddenly there was nothing stopping reality from crushing her.
Coco looked up at her mom, and cried.
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Iguin watched his seed of hope from the trees as she gave up on walking and decided she just wanted to cry in her mother's arms.
Iguin of course felt bad for the girl, but it was the best course of action, or rather, in their own words:
"Introducing a child to forbidden magic early on will lead them down that path sooner!"
"Later in her life she will understand my cruelty; She will know why her skin had to tainted with ink."
"In fact, she'll learn to be thankful this happened! When I come to save her she'll then run into my arms instead of her mother's."
"She'll be my apprentice."
"My child."