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Coco holds her breath as Adan castle comes into sight. Its view from midair is unfamiliar, but even so she can tell the estate itself has not changed in the decade or so she has been away.
"So, this is it, then?" Agott asks for confirmation, as though there are any other castles for them to run into in these humble lands.
"It is," Coco replies, and surely enough, the grand carriage soon dips through the air for the landing.
The carriage skids to a halt in the middle of the castle grounds, and Coco steals enough time to take a deep breath and steady herself before the door opens to reveal their welcoming entourage.
It might be because of the sense of mystique that hangs over her hazy memories of childhood, but she had thought it grander than it actually is. Perhaps the novelty has worn away over the years now, after witnessing countless monuments that could only be referred to as works of wonder — the twisting paths of the Serpentback Cave, the Assembly crafted out of the seabed, the Island King's castle, the Tower of Tomes. Nevertheless, she had truly believed that the castle was bigger than this.
Or perhaps it is just that she used to be smaller, back then.
The year before Coco left her home and her mother behind, she had fallen sick and missed the yearly celebrations. She had begged her mother to take her to the castle anyway, of course, and spent the whole day inconsolable even as her mother promised over and over again to take her there the next year.
The next year had never arrived in the end —
Agott presses a kiss on the rough scarred tissue of her cheek before climbing out of the carriage, and a little delighted squeak escapes Coco's lips , her heart racing — the feeling never gets old, no matter how long they've spent together. And well, it certainly is good to know that some things haven't changed.
It also serves as a brilliant distraction to Coco's nerves, which might've been Agott's plan from the very beginning. "Agotta hand it to you," Coco says, as Agott waits at the carriage door and holds out a hand for Coco. "You know me too well."
Agott responds with the most handsome smile Coco has ever seen.
The next year never arrived for them back then, true, but now Coco has returned to the castle, even if a decade too late, as a honoured guest.
However hard it might be to spot in bright daylight, beneath their feet the floor glows with a familiar warmth, and the two of them exchange knowing smiles.
Even Agott's cure for Coco's nerves does not last forever, alas, and they return with a vengeance by evening, threatening to open a pit in her stomach.
It is not the lord of the castle that makes her nervous, not after having bargained with the Island King himself — The man's motives, of seeking an alliance with the first witches to settle down in his humble lands, seem blissfully simple after everything that Coco has already faced, and easy enough to achieve — though the slightest dread at the idea of making a misstep does still linger at the back of her mind.
"Still nervous?" Agott asks, bumping her shoulder against Coco's.
Coco simply shrugs helplessly in response. "It's a little bit silly, I know," she admits. "I think I might've been less nervous during our first Silver Eve, actually — now, isn't that something?"
And oh, her first display at the Silver Eve Procession had been such a disaster —
"Don't be like that," Agott consoled. "How many people out there personally know you, compared to Silver Eve Processions?"
The answer is way too many. Coco lets out a shaky breath at the idea of casting magic worthy of gracing the halls of nobility with the people who had once watched her stumble around the village grounds like a lamb-foal there to witness it.
With her mother there to witness it, without doubt, standing down there somewhere amongst the crowds, her eyes peeled for the sight of her daughter standing at the raised platform.
No, it isn't the lord of the castle who is making Coco nervous at all.
Agott nudges her side with her elbow, this time. "Want to step away from all of this?"
Coco looks at her as though she has grown a second head. "We're guests of honour," she squawks in horror. "We can't just up and leave — "
"Who said anything about leaving," Agott casually shrugs. In the amiable spaces left between their conversation, the muffled sound of the lord's ongoing address to his subjects drifts into the corridor — he seems nowhere near to being done. "We're just going on a quick walk, it hardly counts if we come back right away. Come on, now." She takes ahold of Coco's hand, and Coco lets herself be led away.
The two witches walk and walk in the search of a spot secluded enough, their footsteps confident with the glowstones lighting their path. Coco instinctively pulls her hood low, and Agott mirrors her — there isn't much chance of them being recognised without their hats, the hallmark of their trade, but they don't wish to test their luck.
Making their way through the various stalls and crowds that have gathered within the walls, they wind up in the narrow streets that surround the castle, in the end, and Coco isn't oblivious to the irony of returning to roughly the same place where her journey had once started.
"This looks good enough, don't you think?" Agott smiles, settling down into a corner for their usual ritual.
Taking in Agott's vibrant expression, Coco supposes it is.
Palm quires flipped open, the two of them lose themselves in making creatures of light dance around the dark alleyway, and lose sight of all their troubles along with it. Letting their anxieties flow away with the flow of their pens into glyphs, the world around them shrinks to contain only them and the creations of their hands, until —
"Wow!" a childish voice squeals in delight, bursting the little bubble of seclusion Agott and Coco have built around themselves, and the two witches startle, exchanging a quick glance between themselves. "So pretty!"
A young girl reaches out her hand to the owlcat that either one of them must have sent soaring through the air at some point (keeping track of cast spells definitely had not been on the forefront of their minds), and it grazes her fingertips, leaving behind a trail of golden light as it goes.
Her eyes travel from spell to casters and go impossibly wider at the collection of creatures that Agott's beloved decorative sigils have brought forth. "Everything's floating and shining around you!" The girl declares excitedly. "How come?"
"Do you know what magic is?" Coco asks, smiling comfortingly as the girl vigorously shakes her head even as bitter nostalgia threatens to turn the words sour in her tongue. "From the lights dancing around us to the light revealing the way beneath your feet, all of it is magic. It is the miracle that colours our world as we wish."
"Even gold? Can magic do this to the whole world?" The girl demands, so innocently fascinated, jumping over and over on the spot to keep the glowstones lit, and Coco is left speechless for a moment.
'Oh,' she quietly thinks. 'I used to be like that, once.'
A delicate laugh fills both the silence and Coco's thoughts, sweet as silver bells, and — "Yes it can," Agott softly replies. "If you wish for it upon the stars." Her eyes do not stray away from Coco's as she speaks. "Right?"
"Right," Coco echoes, tucking back erratic locks of hair behind her ear.
"Can I do that too?" The girl asks, her eyes shining as bright as the stars, and they look at each other as they smile — because this time, when an Unknowing girl asks her mother if she can become a witch, the answer will be yes, so long as she has the will to learn. When she will see a witch standing on the platform tonight, she will know that she too has the right to stand there as well.
There is a new atelier open to students in a village that belongs to the same fief, after all.
"Once you're older, one day you might," Coco replies, and Agott squeezes her hand in comfort.
When they head for the castle after escorting the girl back to her mother, they leave behind a pouch filled with creatures gently glowing golden, and the seed of a dream for the future.