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“Richeh, your stew is going to go cold if you don’t start eating.”
She blinked back into the present, taking in her surroundings. Richeh didn’t realize that she was so lost in thought, she had left her bowl completely untouched.
She peered into the bowl across from hers—Agott’s—already half-empty, even though she was not paying attention—she never does pay attention to her meals. The girl had a textbook propped open a little to Richeh’s left, against the fruit bowl, threatening to fall from the edge of the table they were sitting around. She was leaning her chin against her hand, stirring and stirring the food in front of her for such a long time that anyone who looked would have assumed that she had finished eating, or lost interest in her food midway through her meal.
Now Agott’s eyes looked hardened when Richeh’s eyes met hers, as she said, “You don’t want to go to bed hungry.”
Richeh didn’t say anything to answer, only halfheartedly pushing around the ingredients in her bowl, her mind drifting into her thoughts again, almost taken aback that she was eating slower than Agott.
The chair next to hers screeched in protest when a careful hand pulled it back from the table. There was a little rustle of fabric against wood, and the scraping of a glass against the table, but when Richeh turned lazily to face the newcomer, her vision was obscured by Tetia’s locks, as the girl settled in her seat, getting into a more comfortable position.
She raised her eyebrows upon seeing Richeh’s bowl, “That’s unusual. You love stew.”
“Just thinking…” she said, her sentence trailing off, as if she was planning on continuing.
Agott stirred the contents of her bowl again, not looking up, “What about?”
Instead of answering, Richeh shrugged her shoulders, following Agott’s movements to rekindle the freshness of her food by stirring the stew in her own bowl, suddenly finding the yellow hue of her potatoes interesting.
It was a funny thing about thinking, truthfully. Richeh had thought of a lot of things before, and all the time, without fail, the thing she was thinking about would become too important in the forefront of her mind. However, it was not the same when she had to explain it to someone that did not exist outside of her mind, or didn't understand the inner workings of it. She has had many instances of people not quite understanding the vigor that her thoughts have, and it does often leave her quite disappointed.
“Oh, Master Olruggio left his cap behind.”
The small voice made the three of them—even Agott, who had been so engrossed in her book—look to the direction it came from.
They were, to be frank, a little late. Richeh has been thinking of the black cap for a while now, as it was the exact thing that has occupied her mind since dinner started.
Coco walked back to the table and took her seat next to Agott, a cup identical to the one Tetia brought to the table sitting in front of her.
Richeh stirred her bowl again, her spoon now lifting a piece of strangely-cut potato closer to her mouth. It was a telltale sign that Tetia had helped Master Qifrey with dinner, but she chose to keep her mouth shut at the risk of getting her own handiwork in the kitchen be berated by her peer when her turn came.
Coco frowned a little, “Should we bring his cap up to his room? I don’t want him to worry and look for it.”
Agott did not take her eyes off of the pages of her book when she said, “He will find it when he needs it, it’s still in the house,” before wiping her hand on a napkin and turning a page. She briefly eyed the cap on a table a little ways off from the dining table and said, “Besides, he doesn’t like us up there. There’s too many important contraptions he’s working on.”
“We can ask Master Qifrey to send it upstairs when he returns,” Tetia suggested, leaning against the backrest of her chair. “At least he is more welcome there than we are.”
If she had one, Agott didn’t voice her reply, digging her chin deeper into her palm as she furrowed her eyebrows and continued reading. Coco pursed her lips, as if she was not satisfied with the outcome of their small discussion, but decided against arguing against it any further.
Perhaps it was a little selfish of her to be thinking of things other than the worry Master Olruggio might experience when he finds his cap missing, but Richeh was—had been—thinking about something else entirely.
“Master Olruggio’s tassel looks like the ones on our caps, doesn’t it?”
Agott, surprisingly, was the first to respond to this offhanded comment. Still with her furrowed brows, and one hand resting against the pages of her book, she eyed the cap one more time.
Coco on the other hand, pushed herself up and sat straighter, “I have been wondering about that since I came,” she started. “I thought everyone knew of the design choice and I was simply not informed.”
“It’s been like this since I got here too,” Tetia said plainly, before her eyes drifted towards the little witch still holding the book.
Agott shook her head, as if denying any allegations. “It’s been like that since I started.”
Tetia put her pointer finger to her chin, gaze drifted upwards like she was trying to remember something, “I think other apprentices usually share the same design as their masters. It is quite important for apprentice witches to wear clothes that signifiy the identity of their atelier,” she said. “Ours kind of look like Master Qifrey’s, doesn’t it? It’s brightly colored, and it has the white fabric at the front.”
“Except for the tassel,” Richeh suggested.
“I can’t really imagine our caps with the black ribbon, though,” Tetia continued, still pursing her lips and thinking hard. “The color clashes with the blue. It mutes such a beautiful color.”
“And it really is not like Master Qifrey to attach a black ribbon onto such a beautifully designed cap with such bright colors,” Coco suggested, following Tetia’s way of thinking. “I guess it works better for Master Qifrey’s own cap, because he has such neutral colors.”
Agott scoffed a little, as if afraid that a full, hard, scowl would offend her peers, and decided to hold back a little, before saying, “So we’re color analyzers now,” she said, offhandedly. Her tone was clipped and sarcastic, but she quickly mended her rough words with her next sentence. “We don’t know for certain it was Master Qifrey who designed our uniform.”
Tetia hummed in thought, before saying dejectedly, “You’re right.”
Coco has not taken her eyes off of the cap sitting on the table when she said, “Would you guys think the ribbon looks better on Master Olruggio’s cap?”
Richeh swiveled around in her chair to look, so fast, that her long, silky hair would’ve whipped around her face and landed straight in her bowl if Agott had not scrambled to pull it away from where it was positioned at the table. She squinted, thinking hard, while having to completely ignore Agott’s complaints about being more careful with her hair at the dining table.
Coco is a genius, Richeh thought.
“Richeh thinks the ribbon belongs to Master Olruggio’s cap,” she said in finality.
Agott’s complaining silenced as the other girls looked back at the cap to observe, still sitting silently, neatly, on the table.
Coco opened her mouth as if ready to voice an agreement—or a disagreement—Richeh really could not tell. But whatever it was, she was interrupted by the sound of the main door opening, letting a little bit of night air into the warm atelier.
Master Qifrey looked a little spent and tired when he stepped inside. The girls watched as his robes billowed a little, the grey-silver fabric trailing behind him as he shut the door. With practiced movements, he made sure the loose parts of his clothes—robes, ribbon and all did not snag on the doorway, or get caught in the door when he closed it behind him. He took off his cap then, gathering the smooth material of the black, seemingly out of place ribbon before setting it on a nearby table—the same table Master Olruggio’s cap was situated on.
The first words that came out of his lips were, “Did you girls finish dinner?”
Richeh couldn’t hear Tetia and Coco’s words of delight, appreciating the food, thanking Master Qifrey for the stew, and showing him that they had cleaned their bowls and spoons while he was away. She could only vaguely see the two leaving their seats and greeting their teacher by the door. The sounds of her peers felt like they were worlds away as her aquamarine eyes briefly met Agott’s deep amethyst ones.
Their master sighed, before Agott and Richeh could save face, exaggerating a disappointed scowl when he reached the dining table, “I thought I’ve told you about reading at the table,” he said, although not making any movements to take Agott’s book away or making her eat faster. “You have time to study later, Agott.”
The girl did not say anything. Instead, she folded a corner on the page of her book to mark where she was, and close it with a small thud. Richeh could see the disappointed look on her face. She was clearly planning on finishing her meal before Master Qifrey could come back and catch her with a book on the table.
Whatever sympathy Richeh bore for Agott quickly dissipated when her teacher turned to her and plainly said, in a tone laced with concern, “You’ve barely touched your bowl, Richeh. Is there something wrong with the stew?”
She shook her head quickly, receiving her bowl back quietly from Agott, who was pushing it back towards her, “Richeh was just a little lost in thought.”
“Really?” Master Qifrey asked, the scolding tone in his voice all but gone when he pulled a stool from nearby and took a seat. He had an amused look on his face that Richeh had warmed up to. “What about?”
In that split second, Richeh silently wondered if asking about their caps was a good idea. Master Qifrey looked tired. He had left them in a rush to take care of a business with a nearby village, which he doesn’t often have to do, like it was an emergency. He barely managed to finish making the stew and serve four portions to them, telling them that if Master Olruggio wakes up from his nap, he would appreciate it if they could serve a portion to him too. He was already out the door before Coco could tell him that they would, bidding them to have a good meal as he shut the door to the atelier.
“Master, why do we have a tassel on our caps instead of a ribbon? It makes our caps look like Master Olruggio’s a little bit, doesn’t it?”
Although Richeh had been the one plagued with the thought throughout the entirety of dinner, it was not her who finally raised the question.
When Coco said it, she made sure to lace her words with a little, sweet, giggle—not that Richeh thought Coco was doing it on purpose, as that was just the way she spoke. However, she did have to commend her peer for saying it in such a laid-back tone, much better than the strained and weighted way it would have sounded if she had been the one to ask such an intrusive question to Master Qifrey.
She turned in her seat again, this time a little more carefully to save herself from the burden of having to wash her stew-stained hair. Tetia and Coco were now kneeling on the warm rug underneath the table where the two caps were sitting on, as if needing an up-close inspection to confirm their earlier discussion.
Richeh thought that it looked even more striking now that they were compared side-by-side. Master Olruggio’s black cap was adorned with such intricate diamond-shaped embroidery in the most beautiful golden thread. Among the golden ornaments, the golden tassel that hung from the tip of the cap did not look strange at all. However, when compared with Master Qifrey’s all silver and white cap with a single golden rivet attached at the front, the black ribbon looked more out of place than ever.
It was plain as day, at least to Richeh, that the ribbon must belong to Master Olruggio’s cap somehow.
Master Qifrey hummed in thought before answering. “When you girls graduate and start your own ateliers, the caps your students wear can be designed any way to your hearts’ content,” he replied. “I thought a tassel matched the gold pin of your hats better.”
Richeh was, however, not convinced, “Yes, Richeh agrees,” she said, insisting. “So why does Master Qifrey have a ribbon on his hat?”
There was a split-second where Richeh thought she was going to get yelled at—something she felt was very possible of happening. She was used to being shut down when she voiced those forefront thoughts out loud, especially when she intrusively asked nosy questions like that. However, even before she could remember that she was in a different atelier altogether, and that she had never heard Master Qifrey yell at her, or any of her peers, she heard a quiet, gentle, chuckle from her teacher’s lips.
The look on his face was serene, like he was reminiscing about events that the four of them were not available to witness—something treasured, although there was a hint of sadness reflected from the single eye Richeh could catch from her seat at the table. His expression told one of mystery, and perhaps Richeh, Coco, Tetia, and Agott were never going to get through the bottom of the many mysteries Master Qifrey harbored until the day they graduated. There was a thin smile on his lips that only grew wider as he picked himself up from the stool he was sitting on, walking towards the two apprentices still observing the two caps.
“Why? Does my cap look all that unpleasant to you?” he asked. Richeh watched as Master Qifrey picked up the black cap from the table. His fingers were very careful when they ran through the short tassel that hung from Master Olruggio’s cap, the golden threads catching light from the fireplace nearby. “I do agree that tassels look incredible on caps, though.”
Coco smiled and picked herself up from the rug, a tone of understanding woven into her words when she said, “They do look incredible, Master Qifrey,” she said. “I like the way our caps look.”
“Oh, I’ve always thought that the blue shade you chose looked very bright and cheerful,” Tetia added with a smile that could rival the sun.
Master Qifrey laughed, as Coco nodded at Tetia’s statement in agreement. With careful movements, he secured the black cap underneath his arm.
“I will take Master Olruggio’s cap back to his room,” he announced, his voice laced with the same firmness he often would use when announcing a trip or an activity, although not any less gentle. He looked at the direction of the two girls still sitting around the dining table when he said the next part. “You two finish dinner properly.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Richeh saw Agott nod.
Master Qifrey did not exchange any more words with the girls before retreating to a deeper hallway in the atelier, in the direction of the walkway that led to Master Olruggio’s room.
Richeh merely chuckled, but Coco was much faster than her. Once the door shut behind Master Qifrey and he was out of earshot, she said it, the very thing the four of them had simply come to agreement that night: “They definitely swapped ornaments.”