Chapter Text
The letter arrives early one morning. Getting mail is far from unusual in their household, between official papers from the hall about Qifrey’s stipend, invites to events neither of them go to unless strictly necessary, commission requests and letters of thanks addressed to Olruggio (and on one particularly funny occasion, a proposal from the daughter of a nobleman) and the girls staying in touch with their friends, fluttermail finding their doorstep is just part of their routine.
This one, however, contains a promise, or maybe a threat depending on how you look at it. It’s a seal he knows well, and he quickly calls Olruggio to open it together.
Dear Qifrey and Olruggio,
I hope you’ve been well these past months. How’s the little one? The girls have been keeping me (or rather, my apprentice) updated, but it’s been a while since we had the chance to talk, hasn’t it?
Euini and I have been travelling so much, maybe you had the right idea about settling down in some cozy little atelier instead of sticking to this whole travelling witch thing. It’s been nice seeing so many different parts of the world, but I think we could really use a break.
Hence why I have decided that we’ll be visiting you tomorrow! (Or rather, today, assuming the time you receive the letter)
I hope you’re not too busy! And if you are - no you’re not! Well, not quite, I suppose. The girls did mention you were going to start on the nursery soon, so we’re coming to help! Better start sooner than later, right? Don’t worry, it’ll be fun! Plus, I doubt poor Olruggio could handle all that by mostly by himself, and you, Qifrey, are NOT going to overexert yourself!. Wouldn’t want him to throw his back out again!
If all goes well, we should arrive before noon. I’d apologize for the short notice, but at least I figured you’d like some warning instead of the initial plan of just showing up unannounced. See you in a bit!
Your friend,
Alaira
Yes, it was definitely more a threat than a promise but Qifrey can’t help but smile either way. It had been more than half a year since they’d seen Euini and Alaira, and he’s sure he’s not the only one who missed them. Even if they weren’t in hiding anymore, the two of them had taken to long bouts of travel whenever they saw fit, a learning opportunity always around the next corner and far away from the scrutinising eyes of the Great Hall.
The girls too are elated at the news, Richeh especially. She’d been the one most frequently exchanging letters with Euini, and there is an eagerness on her face that Qifrey rarely sees from his most stoic apprentice. He can tell the anticipation is making her restless, fingers playing with her ribbons the whole time during breakfast until a knock at the door interrupts their meal.
“Richeh will get it,” she declares immediately, standing up before anyone else can even react. Qifrey and the others soon follow her, wanting to greet their visitors as well, only to come face to face with not two, but seven faces at their doorstep. All of them look a little flushed, the early mornings now considerably colder than they had been a month ago, three adults and four children waiting to be allowed entry with varying degrees of eagerness.
“I brought helpers!” Alaira announces cheerfully, ruffling Richeh’s hair before entering their atelier and pulling Qifrey into a tight hug, as much as his bump allows. Richeh looks a little miffed, but the expression melts away as soon as she spots Euini, ignoring everyone else to say hello to her friend.
“We met Alaira in Kalhn, thought we’d join the fun,” Utowin grins from behind the gaggle of young teens. Judging by Easthies’ scowl, “we” in truth meant “Utowin, Tartah and Custas”, with Loroga and an unwilling Easthies along for the ride. Right on cue, Custas barrels past the others, a flurry of dark hair and his billowing black and sea foam colored apprentice coat, almost hitting Tartah in the head with his winged cloak as he makes to tackle Coco. Both of them laugh wildly as they tumble down, nearly pulling Agott with them who looks considerably less amused by the prospect of hitting the cobblestone floor under them.
“Aren’t you gonna invite us in? We came all this way to do manual labor for you, after all!” Utowin dramatically clutches his chest in mock hurt, and next to Qifrey and Alaira, Olruggio snorts.
“Don’t think this makes up for the money you owe me,” he grumbles, but steps aside anyways, allowing everyone to enter.
“I would never!” Utowin proclaims in a way that makes it clear he had, in fact, been hoping for it. There’s a bit of awkwardness as everyone shuffles in, the amount of people in their living room having suddenly more than doubled with their new arrivals, but soon everyone finds themself more or less comfortably seated.
“We also brought you spicebark rolls!” There’s some hasty fiddling as Euni digs the bag out of a magical pocket, holding it out for Qifrey to take.
“They’re somewhat of a speciality up north, better than any you could have here,” Alaira tells them. “We made sure to bring enough for everyone! Though I suppose there won’t be as many left over for tomorrow now.”
While the bag makes the rounds, Qifrey gets up with some help from Alaira (he really should not have sat down on the floor) and puts on a kettle in the kitchen. Though sweet spicebark rolls are not what he’d consider a healthy breakfast, he supposes they can make an exception today, considering the happy munching he hears from the living room. Soon, he brings a kettle of hot water, nearly every tea cup they own and various different tea blends they have stored to where the others still are, already trading stories from travels and studies. The kids are talking in excited voices, overlapping in various conversations, some talking with their mouths full. Qifrey scarcely can remember the last time the atelier had seen so many people at once as he sets down the tray before taking his place on the couch this time, sitting by Richeh and Euini, huddled together in conversation about Euini’s travels.
Olruggio seems to be engaged in some sort of debate with Utowin, Alaira’s laugh chiming when the two men reach a particularly silly point of contention. Eathies looks uncomfortable and like he’d rather be anywhere else, which is likely true, but despite his dislike of the man Qifrey can’t help but find it a little sweet that he gave in to the whims of his friend and the apprentices when he clearly would rather not have. On the floor, Loroga is talking to Tetia, or maybe it’s more accurate to say that Tetia is talking, uncaring who exactly is listening as long as someone is, tension on his face whenever he looks at Agott.
Who, for her part, seems to be doing her best to hide the scowl on her face every time Tartah moves too close to Coco, and Qifrey chuckles fondly. Though the boy’s crush on his apprentice had long since waned (and is now firmly directed at someone else, if the joint hands with his fellow apprentice are anything to go by), Agott still seems a little unwilling to let her annoyance go.
They stay like this until every last spicebark roll has been eaten, and the tea kettle had to be refilled twice. He learns about the coastal town Alaira and Euini had visited, and about how they’d helped them with the crumbling docks, and about the beautiful flower fields in the west that, as Alaira had told it, Euini had spent hours running through in his wolf form. His face is red and the little wolf ears on top of his head twitch with embarrassment, but he’s smiling all the same. When Tartah tells them about his latest visit to his grandfather, Qifrey feels a slight tinge of guilt that he pushes down, choosing to instead listen to the boy talk about the newest ink at the stationers.
Eventually, their leisure time comes to an end, as proclaimed by Alaira.
“We didn’t just come here to catch up, after all!” she reminds them with a wink, looking at Utowin in particular when she says it. “Everyone’s done eating? Let’s get to work!”
Quickly, they realize that the room they chose is far too small to comfortably hold thirteen people and still allow them to work, and so the eight children are given the day off to enjoy time with their friends. Qifrey knows his girls would not mind helping, not in the slightest, but he thinks they deserve the chance to catch up with the others. He does remind them not to stray too far, and to be careful when they inevitably start racing with their sylph shoes and Custas’ winged cloak, though he’s not quite sure how well they’ll listen. After all, they’re at the age where their abilities have grown, but their estimation of where the line between fun and danger lies during play and exploration hasn’t quite caught up yet.
With now only the five adults in the room, they slowly begin their work. First, everything needs to be cleared out, remnants of old furniture and boxes full with things Qifrey doesn’t even remember buying being shoved and carried into the living room, memorabilia of a life lived and shared between him and Olruggio and then the girls, too. Seeing as he can’t quite help there, he instead settles down with the things they clear out and begins sorting through them.
Doing so, he finds an old tea kettle he had been looking for, and some of the mugs he thought they’d lost. Old clothes the girls had outgrown but that he hadn’t quite had the heart to throw away turn up, as well as parts of their old couch that Qifrey has no idea why they kept.
With four pairs of hands working on the clutter the old storage room empties fairly quickly; Qifrey isn’t even done sorting through everything when they begin cleaning it, floating dusters making sure every corner of the room is immaculate. Olruggio’s hair is ruffled and dusty when he checks on Qifrey, pulling him up and kissing him softly.
“We’re grabbing the furniture now,” he announces, gesturing for the other three helpers to follow. There’s sprinkles of dirt on all of them, but even so they follow dutifully for what will surely be the most taxing part of this whole ordeal.
They’d acquired the furniture for the nursery just a few days prior and had stored it away in Olruggio’s workspace for the time being. Maneuvring around those boxes had been a task, especially when he’d gone to call his partner to bed in the late hours of the night, and Qifrey is glad they’ll be moving them out of there now. It had taken a lot of levitation spells to even get them inside, and countless trips with someone directing the packages to make sure none was dropped.
One by one, those boxes now begin to fill the empty former storage room and once they’re done, Qifrey decides to join them. He’s not fully done with his own task, but sitting there all alone is getting terribly boring. When he pokes his head in, the parts for the crib are already all on the floor, Olruggio sitting in front of it with various tools.
“Can’t we just use spells to put it together?” Utowin asks, staring questioningly at a piece of wood in front of him as if trying to puzzle out how exactly that would fit to a crib.
“Nay,” Olruggio tells him, not even looking up from where he’s surveying all the pieces. “We’d have to put spells on every part and match ‘em anyways, might as well do it the old fashioned way.”
“Maybe self-building furniture should be your next invention, dear,” Qifrey smiles as he sits down on one of the still closed crates.
“I’m sure there would be quite many buyers out there,” Alaira agrees, a hammer in her hand. “But I think we can do this without, can’t we? There’s five brilliant witches in this room after all!”
Maybe Alaira jinxed them with that. Because even as noon nears, the crib is still mostly in parts, having been taken apart halfway through twice already.
“Stupid bloody thing,”Olruggio grumbles as he pulls out another nail, dropping one of the parts that had just been attached and replacing it with another.
“What about this one?” Utowin asks, examining a curved piece that they’d tried to fit in three times already.
“I don’t think so,” Qifrey comments from where he’s sitting. “The end points don’t appear to match up, do they? I think you might need one of the rounder ones.”
“But we tried them already!”
“Flat, then, maybe?”
“I’ll give it a try,” Olruggio sighs. It doesn’t fit.
Utowin curses, rummaging through the now far less orderly mountain of parts once more. “What about this one? I swear, this thing’s more stubborn than Eas.”
Alaira and Easthies had moved to the living room to build the changing table and a shelf, and so far there had been no sounds of cussing or arguing or anything else. From what Qifrey had seen during a trip to the bathroom, the two had worked in focused silence, unlike the two men in front of him.
“How’s things been with him, anyways?” Olruggio asks, not looking up from his newest attempt at matching up pieces. “We ran into him and the kids a while back. Heard there was something about a letter.”
He says it like he barely cares, but Qifrey knows that his partner secretly loves gossip. It’s the one good thing about the terrible parties his clients invite him too, aside from the good booze that he’s been abstaining from the last few months.
“Eh, that… I’m working on it,” Utowin shrugs, and when Olruggio hums understandingly, Qifrey feels like there is something he’s not quite privy to going on.
“He’s still being the same dense bastard?”
“Yeah. Nothing’s worked so far, even with the stuff you told me to try.”
“Damn,” Olruggio comments sympathetically, followed by a string of curses when he nearly hits his thumb with the hammer he’s been working with.
“Ugh, I give up,” Utowin says, throwing his hands in the air and lying flat on his back. “Not- Not about that. The furniture. Something’s wrong with this thing, I swear.”
“Maybe there’s parts missing…” Olruggio muses, running a hand through his hair, messing it up further. It had grown quite a bit lately, he’s due for a trim. “But I counted ‘em all before we started.”
“Then it’s cursed!” Utowin whines more than he says, and Qifrey takes pity on him.
“How about we take a break? It should be lunchtime soon, anyways.”
Right on queue, Alaira appears in the doorway, a floating changing table behind her and a shelf following it. “Still not done?”
“No,” Utowin despairs. “How did you manage to finish that?! You started later than we did!”
“It really wasn’t that difficult,” Alaira tells them, and Eathies nods in agreement. Maneuvering the immaculately built piece of furniture into the room, his eyes wander over the scene in front of him, brows drawn together.
“Have you been using the manual?” he asks, raising an eyebrow at the chaos.
“There’s a manual?!”
It takes them until a good few clockmarks past noon to finish everything up, the crib coming together a lot easier now that Easthies is standing there reading from the manual and giving directions like he’s commanding an army. By the time everything is fully assembled and put where it’s supposed to be (“Not there! That blocks the window.” “Is this your nursery or ours, Eathies?” “Your nursery still needs daylight.” “Sod off.” “After you move the shelf.”) everyone looks just about ready to lay down on the floor and stare at the ceiling, not a single thought to be had.
At least they can finally have their well-deserved late lunch, now. Qifrey had been moving between the nursery in progress and the kitchen, checking that no furniture was being harmed and that Olruggio hadn’t set Easthies on fire yet whenever he had a moment to let the food simmer. It’s been a while since he made this much food, but with all the people who had invited themselves to their place today they would sorely need it. As soon as he’s done, bowls for the stew already prepared next to the pot, he instructs his helpers to please fetch the children.
When they arrive, all eight of them look out of breath and mostly unharmed, safe for some small scrapes, a bit of dirt and some shrubbery stuck in Tetia’s hair. Their faces are red from exertion and the windchill that had settled into the Downs now that fall had arrived, wide grins on most of their faces.
“Racing against Coco and Agott’s not fair,” Tarath laments, and Custas nods.
“They got their crazy fast sylph shoes, how are we supposed to keep up with that?” he agrees, plopping down on the couch and accepting the bowl of stew Alaira hands him with a wide grin and a quick thanks before digging in.
The others are not far behind, all of them once again situated in the living room seeing as the kitchen table simply does not have enough room to fit everyone.
“And Euini can turn into a wolf, that’s unfair too,” Loroga complains, withering under Richeh’s glare.
“You’re just mad you lost,” she tells him, a hint of schadenfreude in her voice, even around a mouthful of food.
“Chewing first, then talking,” Qifrey reminds her, but she just shrugs. Some remarks have to be delivered immediately, he does understand.
“Are you done with the nursery?” Coco asks, having the manners to wait until she’s actually swallowed the food in her mouth.
“About, yeah. Just some small stuff left. Nothin’ for today, though.” Mostly, they still needed to add the lights, but Qifrey knows his partner wants to do that in peace at a later date. They’d also still need to get clothing and bedding, but that too would come in due time.
“Can we see? Please, please please!” Tetia nearly drops her bowl with how fast she gets up, and Qifrey laughs.
“After lunch, I promise.”
True to his word, once everyone has had their fill and the dishes are put away, the thirteen of them make their way upstairs to show the apprentices the fruits of their labor.
The simple wooden furniture barely lets on that some of it had been taken apart and reassembled, warm colors filling the room. There’s a light yellow rug in the shape of a sun in the middle, too, matching the fall sun shining in through the window that markedly does not have a shelf half in front of it. Qifrey can tell that the other four are proud of their work as they show the room off to the teens, letting them marvel at it with more enthusiasm than he thinks is strictly necessary.
Still, they’d done a fine job and Qifrey laughs lightly when he can feel the baby kick. “I take it you agree with this place?” he whispers, gently resting a hand on his stomach as he continues watching his friends and family standing in this small pocket of space they’d all worked together to create for their little one, loved etched into every scrapped corner, every nail and sticking seal, every proud smile and excited bounce. He couldn’t imagine a better place to be.