Work Text:
The morning was deceptively normal, for being the first after such a momentous shift in the world.
A fourth apprentice, and an Outsider who used forbidden magic at that ... oh, Olruggio was not going to be a happy man when he got home. But that was a problem for Future Qifrey to solve. Present Qifrey had said fourth apprentice to check on. Her first night in the atelier, her first real night away from a home that was now quite out of reach ... there was no world where the poor girl wouldn't be struggling in this scenario, and thus, there was no world where Qifrey wouldn't be offering her a hand with whatever she needed.
... Which, oddly, didn't initially seem to be much at all, although that could easily be a result of her putting on a brave face. The sun was barely up, but rather than still being asleep as Qifrey would have guessed, Coco was staring quite intently at a book she must have been given by one of the others (she didn't strike Qifrey as the type to take something without asking first, and at least Tetia would certainly be willing to share her things without much prompting), flicking through quickly.
A speedreader, then? Or perhaps she was simply skimming around for key details. Either way-
"You're at work quite early."
She flinched when he announced his presence from behind her, not even turning around to face him, and he tried quite hard to not feel like a devil for it.
The poor girl has gone through hell. It's more than fair for her to be a bit jumpy and out of sorts. Don't take it personally.
"I-I have to ..." She sounded small, like she'd done something wrong, and it pulled at Qifrey's heart quite painfully. "If I don't work as hard as I can, then ... I-I can't ... M-Mom ..."
Her shoulders raised high and trembling, as if she was trying to screw herself up tight to keep the tears in.
... Poor girl ...
He laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and tried to hope that it helped.
"... For what it's worth, I have the utmost faith in you, my dear." He wished that he could just say 'I know that you can do it', it would be so much easier on her heart in the moment, but despite what some people may assume about him, he didn't actually enjoy lying in the slightest. Coco deserved better than lies, better than someone getting her hopes up that this was a certainty only to leave the crushing despair of disappointment as an option; she would do her best, and they just had to hope that that would be enough.
There was nothing he could give her that felt like enough after what she'd been through; he could only give her everything he could, and hope that hope didn't betray him once again.
"How about we review what you've learned so far, then? Regular reviews help things stick in your mind a lot more than simply reading and moving on."
This was his first time teaching someone who didn't even know the fundamentals of spellcasting, so he had to admit, he did feel slightly out of his comfort zone here, but the same principles should mostly apply. Outsiders and witches were both human, after all, Coco was hardly part of some alien species beyond comprehension and understanding.
(Qifrey would know. He had been in her shoes, once. At least she had the benefit of learning in an atelier, away from the Great Hall, avoiding the worst of the whispers and the dirty stares. He'd be damned if he let his students go through a fraction of what he did, he'd be damned if he let Coco-)
Cry?
She was crying. Oh, the tears were out in full and she was crying. O-Oh, oh dear, oh dear-
"C-Coco? Darling, what's wrong?"
Pointless question, stupid question, she lost her mother barely a day ago - just because Qifrey didn't know his own mother, that didn't mean he didn't understand that such a loss would hurt someone deeply, especially a child, especially a child like Coco who would inevitably blame herself for the circumstances.
Say something, help her, you're her master now, and more than that, she's a child who needs help, you have to, you have to-
"Don't cry, sweetheart, it's alright-"
"N-No it's not ..."
She whimpered, collapsing into her arms on the table as her body trembled and Qifrey stood there feeling profoundly useless.
"It's not alright ... nothing's alright ... I can't do it ... I-I just can't ..."
Oh, love ...
"... It always feels like that starting out, Coco. I remember being an apprentice, I remember how insurmountable it all felt at the beginning." Granted, he was overwhelmed as a boy for more reasons than that, but Coco didn't need to know that; no-one needed to know that, if Qifrey could help it, he was quite planning on taking so much to his grave (assuming he would even have one). "But I promise, it's nowhere near as scary as it seems; if you take it one step at a time, you'll look back soon and be astonished at how far you've come-"
"B-But I can't even take that first step ..."
... Oh?
She still wasn't looking at him, but she shrunk in on herself at the desk, quiet and ashamed. Carefully, Qifrey sat down with her, far enough away to give her her space but close enough to make his presence known and hopefully act as something calming.
He was a second away from reminding her to breathe before she did it herself, heaving and tired and too old for her bones; he bit back the urge to reach out and hold her, and it truly was a battle hard-fought.
"I ... I can't ... I-I can't read ..."
... Oh ...
"I-I tried ... I really did ... there are some p-pictures here, so I tried to see if I could figure anything out without the words ... b-but I can't ... none of it makes sense and I'm s-scared to try again when I don't know what I'm doing ... I-I can't do what witches can do ... I can't ... I-I can't ... o-oh, Mom ..."
Whatever she wanted to say trailed off into choked out sobs, trying to be silent but not quite getting there. Qifrey could feel his chest ache for her as he bit his lip hard enough to pierce through.
... So ... Outsiders couldn't read. Only witches could. That ... made some degree of sense; witches had a wide range of privileges that Outsiders didn't, thanks in no small part to the taxes of the common man heading straight to the Great Hall's coffers. It was something he'd never thought about, never needed to think about with how limited his interactions with Outsiders typically were, but ... looking back, yes, that did fit with what he'd seen. He was frankly more than a little bit embarrassed that he hadn't put the pieces together on his own. Maybe it was simple privilege leaving him blind (pun not intended), maybe it was some other 'common knowledge' which no-one remembered that he needed to actually be taught about.
(He remembered those early days in the Great Hall. He remembered Beldaruit fumbling around him, learning how to be a master in the same breaths that Qifrey was learning how to be a person. He remembered the bedtime stories, the primers, the history books.
He remembered them all looking like incoherent scribbles of nonsense. He remembered realising that everyone expected them to mean something to him. He remembered that making him feel so small and foolish, even though Beldaruit had made sure to reassure him, over and over and in every context imaginable, that anything he didn't know was in no way his fault, considering his ... circumstances; he'd assumed that the written word was just one more thing that the Brimmed Caps had stolen from him, alongside his name and his eye and the concept of a birthday and his mother's voice and the ability to sleep soundly, so it was a bizarre kind of relief to know that this one thing was something he'd likely, simply, never had at all.
He remembered feeling mortified when he eventually had to tell Beldaruit the truth, after too long of trying to learn on his own with no success. He remembered being worried that he would be dismissed as a lost cause if he couldn't even read, that he would be cast out into the world of Outsiders with nothing after all, like he knew that the other witches had wanted Beldaruit to do from the start.
He remembered Beldaruit doing nothing of the sort.
"I-I'm so sorry I didn't notice sooner! But it's quite alright, don't you worry. Everyone has to start somewhere. S-So ... are you up for starting now, lad?"
He remembered that making him feel ... something. The kind of warmth that soothed and bit in the same breath. The kind of warmth he'd grown used to with time and refused to think of as sad because he didn't know what to do with himself if he did.
The kind of warmth that he hoped he was able to offer his own apprentices in softer, less complicated tones; simply sweet with no trace of bitterness. Oh, how he hoped he could offer them a better world than his; it was the duty of any master worth a damn, and he prayed every day that he counted among their number.)
"... I'm sorry I didn't notice sooner."
Hesitantly, giving Coco time to indicate if she wasn't up for it, he rubbed gentle circles around her shoulder, trying to bring her back down to earth; slowly, the trembling stopped, and her breathing settled into something less strained and miserable.
I've got you. It's alright.
"But it's quite alright, no need to worry. Everyone has to start somewhere. So, are you ready to start now, my dear?"
She turned her head in her arms to look at him for the first time this morning, eyes glistening with tears and trust both; Qifrey held it in his hands like something sacred.
He scooted closer to her and she gave no indication that she wanted anything less.
"... I'll tell you what. I'll need to visit the Great Hall in a little while, to get everything officially sorted out for you. Until then, how about I read this book to you, and give you a quick rundown of the basics myself? And then once I'm home, I can start teaching you your letters so you can read for yourself as much as you want. How does that sound?"
Coco forced herself to sit straight with shaking arms; wiping her face with her sleeve, she gave him a watery but determined nod, and Qifrey felt so beyond proud as he flitted the book back to the first page.
("That's my boy.")
"That's my girl."
(A few short days later, he found himself with a letter slid under his bedroom door that simply read 'fank yu master kifri'. Something blossomed in his chest as he nestled it under his pillow for safekeeping.
He briefly wondered how many similar sheets still lingered in a lockbox far beneath the waves, before swiftly deciding that he was fine with not knowing; he knew he'd never hear the end of it if he asked.)