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"You're not my parent, so stop acting like it!"
As soon as the words left her mouth, both Qifrey and Agott froze, staring at each other in stunned silence. From the corner of his vision, Qifrey could see Olruggio had stilled as well, looking up from where he lay scribbling in front of the fireplace.
Then, the shade of Agott's face paled into a sheet-white, and she opened her mouth, trying and failing at a follow-up before she turned and fled to her room. The sound of her door slamming echoed throughout the atelier. Qifrey still hadn't moved a muscle.
Slowly, Qifrey drew back from his hunched-over postion and turned to the counter. He picked up the knife he'd been using, resuming his dinner preparations. The shallow thud of the knife was the only sound to cut through the thick silence for an unbearably long minute.
Sensing a worried remark would soon come from Olruggio if the silence continued, Qifrey said softly, "I'll give her some time to cool off."
Olruggio made a noise somewhere between a strangled hum and an "uh huh".
After another agonizingly long moment, Olruggio stoood up and walked over to the kitchen, leaning against the overhang. Qifrey could feel the concerned stare on his back.
"She didn't mean it like that, you know."
Qifrey hummed and nodded slightly.
"You're new at this, so there's bound to be a couple of rough edges." Olruggio's voice was steadying, reassuring. "There's no—"
"Olruggio." Qifrey turned, a soft smile on his face. It wasn't entirely false—fondness for his friend's level of care broke through. He could sense worry for both himself and Agott, and for the new bounds being tested in their relationship, something they would inevitably learn to overcome, should he truly intend to be a good teacher. But the smile was placating, nonetheless. "I am well aware."
When the crease between Olruggio's eyebrows still remained, Qifrey laughed lightly. "Olly, surely you remember I wasn't exactly an easy child, yes?"
Olruggio perked up with an air of defensiveness he recognized from decades ago. "Hey now—you weren't a difficult child, you were just—"
"Yes, I know, Olly. And neither is she, before you say anything." Qifrey set down the knife and absently wiped his hands on his skirts, then briefly looked down and grimaced. Shaking his head and paying it no further mind, he continued, turning to face Olruggio fully. "It's just that, being prone to outbursts as I was, I made my fair share of scathing comments to my own master. And I can tell you for a fact that I wholeheartedly meant quite few of them."
At that, Olruggio seemed to ease a little, and even let out a chuckle of his own. "Yeah, now that you mention it, you didn't go real easy on Beldaruit's feelings, did ya? I remember a few of those myself."
Qifrey sighed. "I suppose I owe Beldaruit some leniency for that—perhaps I'll visit him for tea sometime. Now that I've experienced it myself, he may have been right about the 'loneliness of being rejected by one's apprentice'."
Then, as if suddenly catching himself in a bout of delusion, Qifrey froze and wrinkled his nose. His own words, 'he may have been right', played over in his head, and he groaned. "Eugh. Nevermind. Please forget I said anything, Olly. and do not relay any of this conversation to Beldaruit." He quickly turned back to his vegetables, chopping them with newfound vigor.
He heard Olruggio bark a laugh behind him and he smiled. "Can't make any promises on that. I gotta have some way to get out of his nagging when I stop by the Great Hall, and that might just stun him enough for me to escape."
"You wouldn't."
Olruggio hummed. "Y'never know."
Footsteps descended the kitchen stairs, and Qifrey wordlessly held out a ladle for Olruggio to take and begin stirring the stew, letting him take the reign on today's flavors. The two of them stayed like that, chatting softly as they cooked for another clockmark or so, before the sky grew dim and it was about time to set the table. Olruggio took over the job of preparing their plates and waved Qifrey off in the direction of Agott's room.
After hovering in the hallway for a truly silly amount of time, Qifrey hesitantly brought up a hand to knock at the heavy door. He didn't know whether it was locked, but he suspected Agott would prefer if he didn't try it first. He'd had his share of experiences with that, as well.
"Agott?" he called.
A faint shuffle sounded from within the room after a moment of silence.
"Agott," he repeated, softer, "it's time for dinner, if you'd like to come out. If not, I can bring it to your room as well, if that's what you'd prefer; but I think it might be helpful if we talked a moment." He kept his voice even, careful not to startle her or seem too demanding. It was her choice, ultimately, whether she wanted to have the conversation now or later.
After another long silence, Qifrey began to retreat, resolving to bring her dinner to the door and try at talking later. But shadows appeared slowly under the doorframe, and he took a step back as the door creaked open, Agott's downcast face peeking out amongst a storm of curls.
"There you are." Qifrey smiled. "Would you like to come down for dinner?"
Agott shuffled her feet wordlessly. Her brows were furrowed, like she wanted to say something, but was desperately holding the words in. Settling his expression into something more neutral, Qifrey kneeled down to get closer to her level.
"Agott," he murmured. "would you like to talk about what happened?"
The girl's shoulders hunched, and she seemed to draw back into herself, clutching something soft to her chest. A stuffed owlcat, from the looks of it. Qifrey hadn't noticed she'd liked stuffed animals, but he made a mental note to bring it up at a better time. Then, something soft came whispered from Agott's lips, and Qifrey strained to hear.
"I'm sorry dear, what was that?"
"I said," Agott began, her voice barely audible, "please don't send me away." Her voice cracked on the words.
Oh.
Qifrey's heart shattered at the words, and he could feel something deep and writhing recoil sharply within him, much more violently than it had a clockmark earlier.
"Agott," He lifted a hand to her shoulder, hovering, before she leaned into the touch. "Of course I'm not sending you away. What made you think that?"
The question only seemed to shake Agott more, and Qifrey braved a glance into the room behind her to see, heartbreakingly, that the area looked to be in the middle of tidying up. There was a small bag resting on her worktable, half-filled with personal items and drawing implements. Having her approval, he rested both hands on his apprentice's shoulders and gave them a comforting squeeze.
At the prompting, Agott choked out, "I messed up. I can't be a good witch, and you'll send me away."
Qifrey's brows creased in concern, and he began to wonder what on earth the child had been told to be repeating such a thing. He'd spared himself from most of the rumors surrounding her family and previous apprenticeship, hoping to hear it from her directly; but taking a deeper look into the situation beforehand might be necessary if the events had disturbed her to this degree.
"We would never send you away, Agott. We'd just like to know what happened, and what made you feel so upset earlier. There's nothing we can't talk through."
Agott sniffled, and brought a small hand up to brush tears and long curls away from her face. "We're going to talk?"
"Yes, we'll have a talk. Though perhaps you'd feel better doing so on a full stomach." He tried to bring a bit of cheer into his voice, seeing how drained she was beginning to look, her shoulders drooping slightly. "Olruggio helped with dinner tonight, and he makes quite the wonderful stew. I'm sure that will give you the energy you need."
"And you'll listen?" Agott blurted, a surprised sort of boldness taking over her expression.
Qifrey blinked. "Yes, of course."
He watched her face morph through different emotions before settling on something determined. "You promise," she demanded.
Qifrey nodded. "I promise."
Agott stared at him for a long moment as if trying to decipher whether he was really telling the truth.
"…Alright, then."
With nothing further, Agott stepped out of his loose hold and stalked briskly towards the kitchen with a slight raise in her shoulders. If Qifrey wasn't mistaken, he saw a faint air of confidence there.
Qifrey watched her go, something warm settling between his ribs. That was a success, if he wasn't mistaken. A small one, albeit, but a success nonetheless. Perhaps, he thought, this may work after all. Qifrey felt a mixture of relief and nervousness at the stillness in his body, the silence of the roots as he rode the edge between worrying for Agott's trust in him as a guardian and the rush of an interaction well-done.
He heard a faint chatter coming from the kitchen in Olruggio's familiar cadence, followed by a smaller voice; small and hesitant, but less rigid than he'd been hearing from Agott since she'd come to their atelier.
Qifrey smiled, pushing down the creaking in his boned that sprouted at the imbalance, the tipping of the scales, before joining his apprentice and watchful eye for dinner.