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Agott was never going home again.
No-one was explaining anything. They were all so angry with her, and she was scared that asking any questions would just make them angrier, so she just tried to stay quiet and small and out of the way ... but she'd gathered that much. She'd messed up, badly (or at least they thought she did), and as a result, she could never go back to the Arklaums again.
(She'd tried to explain, early on. Tried to get the words out. But they spluttered out before she could voice them, the second she saw them looking at her like ... that.
The second she saw Mummy looking at her like that.)
To make it worse, no-one in the Great Hall was willing to take her as their apprentice instead. The 'dropout', the 'reject', the 'disgrace'. They discussed her fate so coldly, like she wasn't there, like she couldn't hear them, like they didn't care. The longer they spoke, the more it sank in that this wasn't just a nightmare; she'd been trying so hard not to cry, just in hope that that wouldn't make it worse.
In the end, what ended up happening was ... not the worst-case scenario, maybe, but probably close enough to it. The only witch who would take her lived outside of the Great Hall, far off in the countryside, away from everything and everyone she'd ever known. A fresh graduate of the fifth test, barely experienced as a witch, let alone a master.
Lord Beldaruit's 'problem child'. The one-eyed witch that the rumours made sound so scary. That was the only person who was willing to be around her, tarred as she was. It was a condemnation of her standing in its own right, but he would only tar her further, make the damage irreparable if it wasn't already.
It was the end of everything. She had nothing now. Nothing and no-one.
Her 'new master' held her hand as they left the Great Hall together. She snatched it away while fighting the tears again. He didn't take it back.
(A shameful part of her had wanted him to. Maybe, just maybe, it would have made it hurt less, that Mummy hadn't come to say goodbye.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Agott?"
They'd come to a town near the atelier of her new master - 'Qifrey', that was his name, wasn't it? - to pick up supplies from the magic stationer's. 'To help it feel like a fresh start', he'd said with an over-eager tone that more than crossed the boundary into patronising, and practically screamed that he had no idea what he was doing with her.
(She didn't know why he'd done it in the first place. She was his first apprentice, and by appearances alone, she would look like a difficult one. Did he view her as a challenge to overcome? Or was this cruelty how he'd gained his reputation; did he just want to humiliate her further, that these were the lows that a daughter of a First House had sunk to?)
At least he wasn't eager now. He was soft. Too soft. Fumbling. Clueless. Lost, really.
That made two of them, then. Not that she wanted to be anything like him. Her reputation hadn't been earned, but there was no proving that for as long as she was stuck with him.
She wanted to go home.
"Agott, are you alright?"
Stupid question. How could she possibly be alright? Everyone hated her for something that wasn't even her fault, and there was no fixing it, there was no going home, her life was over, Mummy wouldn't even look at her, she wanted Mummy, she wanted to go home, she wanted to go home she wanted to go home she wanted-
The damn tears were falling now. Qifrey gasped. The stationer, an old man, sighed in what she hoped was sympathy, but couldn't say for certain now.
"A-Agott, I- oh dear, u-um, what now, what do I-?"
"New to this, are you, lad?"
Qifrey nodded bashfully as the stationer chuckled. He came over to her as the tears kept falling, and she jerked back; it made him freeze, but he brushed it off quickly.
"... It's alright now, lass. You're alright. Would you like to talk about it?"
What was the point in asking when they were just going to make her talk anyway? It didn't matter. But the witches in the Great Hall got mad at her for 'lying', even when it wasn't lying at all, so she still shook her head 'no' anyway, and just hoped that she'd be punished less for the honesty.
"Would you like us to stay?" A particularly violent 'no' motion. "Or to give you some time to yourself for now?"
A nod. Small, she couldn't handle much more, but quick.
The stationer hummed.
"Alright, then. Qifrey, there are some things upstairs you said you wanted to look at, right?" Agott wasn't sure when he had mentioned that, but then again, she wasn't taking much in these days-
Stupid, useless, failure, disappointment-
"Let's ... leave downstairs to the little lady for now, eh? I'll close the door up for a bit, give us some privacy."
With her head down, she couldn't see Qifrey's face. She didn't want to.
"I ... thank you, Mr Nolnoa. Truly."
"No worries, lad. I know it can be hard. Any advice you need, just say the word."
"... Yes, sir."
He sounded meek when he said it.
(Ah, came a distant thought. That was right. Qifrey might be a lot bigger than her, but by the standard of grownups, he was pretty young too, wasn't he?)
... She didn't need to think about that. It was already hard enough for her, without thinking about somebody else.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
The two men upstairs were speaking quietly, as if they were trying to convince Agott that she was all alone in the building, 'safe' to let it out. That was a joke. She just sniffled, on what she assumed was the old man's - 'Mr Nolnoa's' - rocking chair, feeling sorry for herself.
She hated feeling like this. She wanted to feel better. Even if nothing about anything actually changed, she at least wanted to feel less terrible.
Wiping her eyes, she looked around for anything that might help, and-
... Oh.
Trying not to alert the men above, she tiptoed over to the cabinet nearby. She reached up to grab some fruit out of the fruit bowl that Mr Nolnoa had put down as they'd walked in; if she ate subtly, quietly, just one wouldn't even be missed, hopefully.
(Ovauranates. Mummy's favourites. She was always so busy, but the rare times she wasn't, she would make cakes with these. Agott would help taste-test, and inevitably make a mess of things.
But Mummy would laugh. Agott missed the days when Mummy would laugh. She wondered if Mummy could laugh again now, now that she wasn't there, a stain on the Arklaum house.)
Agott felt her lip wobble. She bit into the fruit as the tears fell again, trying to let the taste remind her of better times, just for a little while.
(It didn't even taste the same. That felt like just one more twist of the knife.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eventually, but far too suddenly, they came back down the stairs. Agott quickly tried to wipe the evidence from her mouth.
It didn't work. But ... at least they didn't seem angry.
"Well, someone was hungry, weren't they?"
She didn't know how to answer.
Qifrey was smiling, gently teasing. He still sounded a bit patronising, but ... better. Like someone who had recognised a mistake, and was earnestly trying to be better. That ... meant something. Not a lot, not right now, but something.
... She didn't like being mean. As bad as the rumours said Qifrey himself was, he still probably deserved better out of his apprentice than what she was capable of giving. It just made her feel worse, that someone like him could at least try while she felt like she was drowning.
(If he was all she had now, he and whoever his Watchful Eye was, she should at least try to be nicer to him. It was just ... really hard.)
Qifrey's smile fell and Agott waited for his mouth to curl into the kind of sneer she'd seen all over the Great Hall in her final days there. But it wasn't coming.
The only shift in expression was from Mr Nolnoa.
"What did you eat, though? I didn't leave anything edible down here."
... Huh?
"Did you bring snacks with you then, Qifrey? Good thinking for your first trip out with a little 'un."
Mr Nolnoa chuckled, but Qifrey looked as confused as Agott felt.
"... No, I ... I didn't."
... He seemed concerned. Mr Nolnoa's laughter stopped, his easygoing expression hardening a bit as his brow furrowed lightly.
Agott abruptly felt queasy, her whole body stiffening.
Had she messed up? That quickly? That ... that wasn't fair ... please don't let it be true ...
"... Agott?"
She couldn't read Qifrey's tone that well, and she couldn't tell if that was because of the tone itself or because she was starting to panic. She hoped that he didn't catch how she nearly jumped at the sound, though. He wasn't being unkind, at least she thought he wasn't, and she wanted it to stay that way for as long as possible.
"Agott, could you please tell us what you ate?"
... Honesty was for the best. Hopefully.
Too cowardly to look up, she raised a shaking finger up to point at the fruit bowl on the cabinet. Her anxiousness wasn't helped by the sharp intake of breath from Mr Nolnoa as soon as he saw it, for whatever reason.
But ... that paled in comparison to a second later. After Qifrey's confusion passed, and he seemed to recognise something about what had happened, too. She had no idea what it was, and she was scared to find out.
Because ... all of a sudden, Qifrey was angry. Furious. And without a single spell cast, it still seemed to shift the very air they breathed into something sharp and thick and frigid and suffocating.
The rest of her body swiftly followed the lead of her hands. She was shaking.
It was just one fruit. She didn't think it would be so bad. What had she done this time? Whatever it was, she was sorry, please have mercy-
"You ..." Agott was well aware that she barely knew Qifrey at all, but still, it was frightening how unrecognisable this rage made him. Less a man than a growling dragon ready and willing to raze anything in its path. Cold rage, controlled rage, but hanging by a snapping thread. "You left those things in reach of a child?!"
The quick realisation that Qifrey's anger was, for some reason, addressed at Mr Nolnoa and not at Agott, did not do much to calm the sense of danger. Especially with how much paler both men had gotten in seconds.
"I-I was picking them for components when you came in!" At a quick glance, Mr Nolnoa looked as horrified as he sounded, apologetic and desperate in a way that made Agott's stomach twist. "I was always going to put them somewhere permanent after you left, I-I didn't think she'd eat something in here without even asking first, Tartah has never-!"
"Tartah was raised among these poisons, of course he'd know better-!"
"P-Poison?"
Qifrey's roaring died in an abrupt choke. He looked at her as she spoke up, with a too-wide eye and a too-tight mouth and an expression she couldn't read a thing from.
The floor felt unstable beneath her feet. A whimper crept out of her throat, and she numbly realised that these were some of the first sounds she'd made since leaving the Great Hall.
Those weren't ovauranates. They were something else. Similar, but not, terribly not. She should have known better, it didn't even taste right, but no, it had tasted good anyway, so she'd eaten everything, seeds and all, just like 'usual'. She should have known better, once again, and now the stakes of that weren't just social, but true, physical danger.
... Was her life outside truly going to be this short? Was she truly never going home again?
"... I ... A-Am I going to die?"
She couldn't raise her voice above a whisper, but the question fell on the room like thunder.
No-one blinked or moved an inch as fear slowly consumed every corner of Agott's body, heart pounding and breath hammering and the world spinning as she tried and failed to not start crying again like the stupid stupid stupid child she was and-
M-Mummy, help me-
"I-I don't want to die-"
She barely saw Qifrey move. Just a flash of smoky grey in her vision, and suddenly, without so much as another word, she was being lifted off the ground and-
And they were running out of the shop, anything he had bought today left abandoned. They were flying where they could, the air buffeting her face as she was bundled against Qifrey's chest like a swaddled infant; it only made it harder to breathe.
"I don't want to die ..." She whimpered, something that would have been a wail if the energy hadn't been so quickly wrung out of her, and clung to his cloak with a childish desperation as she trembled. Her mind was empty of anything besides that simple, feral fear. "I-I don't want to die ..."
He held her impossibly tighter, as if he was hoping that she could be protected from the consequences of her own idiocy if he simply absorbed her into himself to shield her from the world.
"I won't let you." As quickly as it had arrived, the anger had vanished, washed away like the tide; instead, his voice was simply firm, like there could be no other path forward for him than one where she stayed. It was the kind of conviction that belonged with someone so much older and wiser than this, but here it was, and with everything else she knew about Qifrey forgotten and irrelevant in this moment, Agott clung to it like a lifeline. "I've got you. For as long as I've got you, nothing and no-one will hurt you. I've got you. I've got you."
... There was something else behind the conviction, she realised. There had been something behind the anger, too, hard as it had been to decipher at the time.
Qifrey's hands were shaking as they held her, even as he was trying to keep them steady. This close to his chest, she could hear his heartbeat, just as fast as hers.
... Ah. It was fear. He was afraid. She had made such a monumental mistake that for as much as he was saying that everything would be alright, that was all bluster for her sake; he didn't actually know if this could be fixed.
She struggled to think how any realisation could have been worse.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
They were at the mainland's hospital in what could have been either seconds or hours; the staff must have taken one look at the state of her, him, or both, and saw fit to usher them right in.
Terror had twisted her senses into such an incoherent blur of colours and sounds that she could barely decipher anything. Qifrey was speaking, likely explaining what had happened, but she couldn't tell what he was saying, she could only hear the tone of it, trying to stay level and presentable in front of Outsiders as any witch should, but never quite getting there.
The doctors gave her something to drink, and she assumed from that that it should help her get better. Her hands felt numb as she drank from the bottle; it was the single most bitter thing she had ever tasted, and she nearly spat it out before reminding herself that she might die without it. She hadn't stopped crying since the stationer's, and the taste just made the tears worse. Qifrey raised a glass of water to her lips with those same nearly-steady hands to rinse out the taste, babbling that she was doing well, she was so good, he was so proud of her.
(Childishly, selfishly, she imagined Mummy saying that to her instead. She wanted Mummy here. Would she learn about this? Would she care?
... Would she be embarrassed at another failure from her?)
As fast as the thought came, it left her, along with the contents of her stomach. Burning acid joined the taste of salty tears in her mouth and the bitterness of the medicine, but at least it finally drowned the torturously sweet aftertaste of whatever that fruit had really been.
Qifrey's hand was on her back, feverishly encouraging her as much as he could. Cold and clammy and still shaking like the rest of him.
"Did it work? D-Did it work?!"
"Hang on, Sir Witch, hang on ..."
Through her blurred vision, she could see the doctor's gloved hands fishing through the bucket they'd brought over for her as the medicine started to work.
(Gross.
Stop that, stop that, they're saving your life, ungrateful, ungrateful, stupid selfish little-)
"No sign of any seeds in here, I'm afraid."
Agott whimpered again. Qifrey nearly joined her, she could tell, but he choked it back.
'Problem child' or not, she was hopelessly glad that she wasn't alone right now.
"Well, what else can you do?! She needs to get that thing out of her, now!"
"Calm down, man, calm down ..."
That sounded to Agott's panicked ears a lot like telling fire to be cold, but fear continued to stay her tongue.
"If the emetic didn't work, then the only other way is surgery. You said it was urgent-?"
"Yes." It sounded more like a gasp than a word, coming out of Qifrey. "Yes. Yes, yes, more than anything. You have to act quickly, I'm begging you."
He still sounded so scared. So concerned for her, someone he barely knew.
(Would Mummy beg for her, if it came to that?
... She didn't want to think about that.)
"Alright then. I'll call the right staff in. She can take a bit more medicine, and that'll send her to sleep so we can more easily-"
"NO!"
Agott flinched with her whole body. The doctor did too.
Qifrey had practically shrieked.
Shaking, taken aback by his own volume, he tried to gather himself, but it only mostly worked.
"N-No. You can't. This seed is ... a nasty kind of poison. If the victim sleeps, their life is over." He was trying to sound firm, but only succeeded in sounding haunted. It kept hitting Agott over and over, just how serious this was, to be scaring a grownup like this. Stars, she was so stupid, but she didn't want to die. "So please, sir. It's uncouth of me to interfere with work I know nothing about, I know. But I also know this. She cannot be allowed to sleep while that thing is inside her. Please."
"But Sir Witch, that means-"
Qifrey must have pinned the doctor with some kind of look that froze him in his tracks.
"Do not. Let her. Fall. Asleep."
A second passed. And another. And the doctor drew in a sharp breath through his teeth.
"Alright then ..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
She hadn't really understood what 'surgery' meant, but she wasn't asleep for it. Although it felt close sometimes; they'd laid her down with a weird blanket thing hiding her lower body from her view, and given her an odd medicine that made her mind feel all far away. Sometimes she felt a bit of pain in her tummy, and she winced, and voices said something in a harried tone that she couldn't understand, but mostly she was floating.
Qifrey never let go of her hand the whole time, even though she didn't have enough control over herself to hold his hand back. He was surprisingly strong, considering how frail he looked, but he never held her tight enough to hurt; even through the floaty feeling, it was just that she could never forget that he was here, he was right here, everything was going to be okay (even though he sounded like he was closer to tears than she was).
She felt safe with him here.
She felt something in her tummy twitch.
Eventually, there was a weird feeling like something being pulled out of her that didn't want to let go. It was the closest that Qifrey's grip on her hand had come to hurting; the most that his hands were shaking, too.
The voices - the doctors? - were loud again, loud in a scared way like they hadn't been so far, 'what the hell is that?!', and it hurt her ears and she whined.
She wasn't sure how long passed between those voices and the next hazy memory. All she knew was that at some point, her tummy didn't feel so weird anymore, and Qifrey briefly let go of her hand, and there was the sound of heavy things falling and the smell of something burning and-
And his hand was back again.
"You're safe now ..." His voice sounded oddly thick, and she thought she felt something wet fall on her hand where he was holding it. "It's out ... you're free ... you're safe ... it's over ... i-it's over ..."
Agott couldn't move her face all that well, but she still felt something close to a smile.
"You can sleep now, Agott ... oh my brave girl ... oh I'm so ... so glad that you're here with me ..."
... Okay ... this was ... a long day ... she was really ... tired ...
And those words ... they made her ... so happy ...
"... 'kay, M'mmy ..."
And she closed her eyes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
When she awoke, she was cradled in Qifrey's arms again. Or, well, arm; the other was holding a bag from the stationer's, so she was guessing that he must have gone back there while she slept. That was good, she'd probably caused Mr Nolnoa a lot of worry as well.
Her tummy hurt. She rested her hand there to try and see if that would help, but it didn't, really.
"Careful, dear." Qifrey's voice sounded raw, but soft; it shouldn't work as a mixture, but somehow it did. "You don't want to pull your stitches."
It was a suggestion, not an order, but she took her hand away anyway. She didn't know what pulling stitches would mean, but if Qifrey said that she didn't want it, then she believed him.
... He was calm again, though. So ... did that mean ...?
"Am I ... okay, now?"
Qifrey held her closer to his chest as he made a noise in the affirmative. Now that his heartbeat wasn't terrified, it was actually quite a calming rhythm. Thump, ba-dump. Thump, ba-dump.
"There's nothing to worry about now. They got the seed out of you before its poison could settle in. We're heading home to the atelier now, so you can rest. You'll be just fine, as long as you take it easy for a bit; your body needs time to recover from the day it's had."
... She heaved out a sigh of relief that she didn't know she was holding. Oh ... oh thank goodness ...
"I should ... tell those doctors 'thank you' for today ..."
Qifrey didn't quite stumble, but his steps did something strange for a second before he righted himself.
"That's very sweet of you, dear, but unnecessary. In fact, the doctors in Kalhn are an oddly fussy sort. They don't like being thanked for their jobs, they view it as patronising for some reason. So ... I'd recommend not bringing it up again, actually."
He laughed. It sounded strange. But ... it probably just sounded strange because she was tired. He knew these people and she didn't, so as weird as it might've sounded, she trusted him.
"'Kay ... weird, but ... 'kay ..."
In body and mind, she was just too exhausted ... it was painful and surreal, to think that she'd gotten so close to ... d-dying ...
... All because she was so stupid ...
"... 'M sorry, sir ..."
Qifrey gasped and tilted his head down to look at her, but she couldn't look at him back.
"Whatever for?"
... Wasn't it obvious?
"For causing trouble ... I didn't mean to, I swear ... I ... I-I really just ... th-thought they were ovauranates ..." She felt the tears come again, and buried her head in Qifrey's chest, probably mumbling the rest too much to hear. "I'm sorry ... I'm so sorry for being stupid ..."
... He didn't get mad. He just adjusted his grip on her a little so he could stroke her hair. She'd never admit out loud how nice it felt, even though she felt awful.
"... So that's why ... yes, I suppose they do look quite similar, don't they? Even once you get through the flesh and see the seeds themselves. Must help those damn things survive in the wild ..."
He was talking more to himself than her, so she didn't say anything; he was so patient with her, and she didn't want to ruin anything again.
"You have nothing to apologise for, Agott." He was talking to her now, though, so she listened, even though she felt like that part wasn't true. "That was a mistake anyone could make, so please, don't blame yourself. We can treat it as a learning experience, you know? We all made mistakes today. Mr Nolnoa now knows to keep those things out of a customer's reach at all times, I know to make sure you know the differences between safe and not-safe fruits and berries, and you know to ask before eating anything of someone else's, right?"
Agott nodded stiffly against him as he kept stroking her hair; she could feel it in his chest as he chuckled.
"Then it's all alright. Lesson learned. I'm just glad that you're okay."
And ... he meant it. She could tell that he meant it.
And ... he mentioned wanting to teach her something in future. He ... still wanted to be her teacher. Even after she'd made such a huge, horrible mistake.
So ...
"... So I don't have to leave now?"
His hand paused in her hair briefly.
"Why ... why would you have to-?"
He cut himself off with a small 'oh', like he'd realised something mid-sentence. A second later, his hand was back in her hair, soft and gentle, and she let herself bask in it.
"... Of course you can stay. I promise, you'll have a place at my atelier for as long as you want it. Nothing will ever change that."
Her lips wobbled as her eyes watered against his chest.
She felt awful ... she felt awful for ever believing any of those rumours from the Great Hall ... she couldn't imagine any of them being true now ... not when he was so kind ... not after all he'd done for a stranger ...
... Well ... no ... no, that wasn't quite right ...
"Thank you, Master ..."
She was his apprentice. His first. And if she'd have any say in it, his best. She couldn't let this man down, no more than she could let herself down. She refused.
She was still alive because he'd acted quickly. She was still alive because he cared so deeply. She'd never forget the light he'd shown her when she was so scared. And she'd try her best to pay it back and then some.
"Thank you so much for saving me ..."
Qifrey's breath hitched strangely as he held her close. This time, though, she held him back.
"... Any time, my girl. Any time."
And she believed him. Wholeheartedly.