#brimmed caps

[yuumei-art]

It's once again Witch Hat Monday!

I don't want Qifrey to become a Brimmed Hat, but if he did, this is the design that would cause me the most emotional damage. My headcanon is that Olly made the tassel glow to keep Qifrey warm, despite it all...

[hrsndww]

papa iguin

[zestivivi]

“You are our …one and only hope…..Coco!!”

[mystarstruckself]

Old Habits Die Hard

Qifrey x BrimmedHat!Reader x Olruggio

Masterlist  . Pt 2 Pt 3

Summary: You were only supposed to observe. Sit quietly, gather information, and leave without anyone noticing. Simple enough, except you forgot to account for the fact that Qifrey and Olruggio know exactly how you think. And now, thanks to one catastrophically backfired spell, you're not going anywhere at all.

Tags: Forced proximity, Tethered, friends to enemies to lovers?!, Brimmed hat reader, Shared history, It's so complicated, Olruggio and Qifrey being a united front, She's trying so hard to stay guarded, Slow burn, Found family if you squint

Warnings: Action scene, Minor injuries, Morally grey reader, Complicated loyalties

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

You slid, ducking to avoid the onslaught of spells hurling towards you, courtesy of Qifrey. As annoying as his relentless pursuit of you was, you couldn’t deny that he was good. Scarily good, in fact. His sheer knowledge of magic theory allowed him to keep up with you even though he wasn’t utilizing any forbidden magic. 

You winced at the burn of a scrape against your leg.

Olruggio had momentarily disappeared again. Though this time you expected it. Their pattern was simple yet effective. Qifrey aimed to overwhelm and draw all focus to him. In the gaps in your concentration, Olruggio swung in with a powerful blow, trying to catch you off guard. It had nearly worked. 

Your eyes widened at the recognition of Qifrey’s pattern wavering, a sure indication of Olruggio’s pending attack, except it never came.

You flew back, angling your sylph shoes, thrown at the sight of Qifrey suddenly much closer to you than before. You cursed, hand clutching your pen ready to draw furiously before Olruggio barreled into you from behind.

Your sylph shoes disconnected from each other, sending you and Olruggio free-falling towards the ground. He gripped his hand against your shoulder, thumb biting into your collarbone, trying– and failing– to wrangle you into a still position.

“Stop resisting” He growled into your ear.

You thrashed, bringing your knee up to push against his stomach in an attempt to release his hands from your frame.

How bothersome. You were only supposed to bring intel for the Brimmed Caps. You really weren’t a combative witch. You hated going on missions that could warrant talking to people, forget getting into a fight with them. 

You yelled in frustration as Olruggio brought you into a crushing hug, trapping you beneath his muscled arms. You squinted trying to see through the spinning of your quick downward spiral.

That’s why you had liked this mission in the first place. It was quiet and easy. Just sit and observe the comings and goings of Qifrey’s Atelier, unnoticed. How hard could that be? Plus, you were extra qualified for the job given you knew Qifrey and Olruggio quite well considering how close you were back when the three of you were apprentices at the Great Hall. You knew how they worked, how they thought. So how had this gone so terribly wrong?

You yelped in pain as Qifrey collided hard into the pair of you, crushing you as he attempted to slow your quick descent while holding onto you with a vise-like grip. You groaned, trying to push away from Olruggio’s rough embrace onto to feel your back push against Qifrey’s unmoving front. You were sandwiched. 

You really weren’t a combat witch. They only sent you because you knew Qifrey and Olruggio better than the other Brimmed Hats. You truly knew them. And they knew you. That’s how they had trapped you so quickly. Afterall, you were only really good at crafting spells and what good was that talent in a fight? 

You couldn’t help but smirk, bitterly to yourself. 

What they hadn’t realized was that your crafting had come quite far in your years apart.

You shut your eyes, relaxing into their crushing hold. There was a spell you were quite eager to try. Why not try it now? 

You slowly wriggled your hand up to grasp your necklace– your last chance.

It was a repellent spell. It was simple really. So simple you were rather shocked no one else had thought it up. When activated, whomever or whatever was in direct contact with the user would be propelled far away. As if they were two positive poles on a magnet, theoretically.

You grimaced, hands hesitating against the cool metal of your necklace.

Theoretically, it would launch them away. Had you tried it yet? Not really. But the spell was self explanatory, and you had yet to craft a spell wrong, and really did you have another choice?

You steeled your nerves, fingers moving to rotate the wheel of the necklace, connecting the spell.

At first nothing changed. 

You unfurrowed your brows, biting your lip in confusion, wrapped between the two men, hurdling to the ground, before a sudden burst of brilliant light blinded you.

You felt their grips loosen slightly before leaving you entirely at the feeling of searing heat at the spots their hands just were.

You couldn’t help the scream of pain that left you at the blistering heat.

Though you supposed you should be glad that it at least worked. Still, you couldn’t bring yourself to be too pleased. Why had it burned so horribly? That didn’t make sense. Something must have been off. But, at least, you were no longer being trapped between two broad chests anymore.

As quickly as the hands on you were gone, Qifrey crashed back into you, bracing his arms beneath the crook of your knee and the small of your back as he slammed his Sylph shoes together slowing the pair of you down just short of hitting the ground hard.

He groaned in a mix of relief and frustration before letting you push out from his grip.

You turned away from him quickly only to be met by Olruggio rubbing his forearms with a pained expression, presumably from the effects of your spell.

You paused, brows furrowed in thought.

So they had felt the heat too? But if that were true then they would have gained the same you did from the spell. So why weren’t you launched away from them? Or perhaps the effects nullified? 

“What was that?” Qifrey rasped, rubbing at his sternum. He stood hunched over as if his body were begging him to collapse but his mind refused to let you go.

You dully registered Oruggio's determined stomp towards your direction before you instinctively stumbled back, still reeling from the effects of your ineffective spell.

He paused as if reevaluating whether getting into another chase with you was a smart idea, or something he would be able to even keep up with. You were always annoyingly good at running away from them.

Not giving him the liberty of deciding, you turned on your heel, breaking into a sprint away from where the three of you had crashed.

That blasted necklace. What a terribly crafted spell, you cursed yourself.

You risked a look over your shoulder, more to reassure yourself that you could get away. Yet, instead of them chasing quickly at your heels you watched as they stood unmoving, right where you had left them.

You scoffed. 

You must have tired them out.

That was a step up, you supposed. Back in your training days they used to run circles around you when it came to sparring. Though that hadn’t necessarily changed. You had just found ways to adapt.

You felt it before it happened. A sort of pull in the wrong direction, as if you were being repelled by some force– like the ink of a spell was fighting back. 

You made it maybe ten steps before the air solidified against you, hard. It wasn’t a wall exactly, more like the wrong end of a magnet.

You yelped in surprise, bracing yourself as you fell backwards.

Still, the pull didn’t go away. You winced, rubbing your chest in attempts to dispel the magnetic-like yank before your body started to move, dragging back towards where Qifrey and Olruggio were still standing. 

You scrambled into a sitting position, digging your heels and palms into the soil in a desperate attempt to stop the force dragging you back to them to no avail. You sped up faster and faster before colliding into Olruggio’s, now crouched, form.

He grunted at the force of the impact winding one arm around your waist and bringing the other to catch himself.

You feel a shiver run through you at the feeling of his strong forearm pinning you tight to him. Your own hands moved to rest against his arm as if to pull it away, but for some reason, you couldn’t bring yourself to do it.

You look up, squinting through the sun to stare at Qifrey, hovering over you. There were deep lines of stress in his face, present even as a child but more pronounced now. The once light and airy smile he once reserved for you was now a hard set line.

You groan, more in annoyance as you collapse back into Olruggio’s front, huffing.

Of course, the one time you want to try a new spell it just has to backfire entirely.

“What’s going on?” Olruggio rumbled, sending pleasant shockwaves through you at the feeling of his hum hitting your back.

Your gaze remained trained on Qifrey. How long would it take him to figure it out, you wonder. He was always clever when it came to deciphering the way you thought. 

“This is one of your spells isn't it?” He ventured to guess, nudging his head towards the invisible wall you had hit.

You sighed, dusting off your clothes, more so that you had something to do rather than just sit, trapped between Olruggio’s hold and Qifrey’s stare. 

“Yeah.” You offered, lamely.

The three of you plunged into a heavy silence, disturbed only by the rustle of your movements.

Unfortunately, it was one of your spells. Honestly it was quite impressive. You had never crafted a spell that backfired so horribly that it did the exact opposite of what it was intended to do.

Qifrey crouched down to your level, though he wasn’t looking at you, but rather your necklace. You couldn’t help but hold your breath as he moved to grab the cool metal with delicate fingers, grazing them against the flesh of your neck. 

He scrutinized the spell, leaning forward in his own focus until his face was mere inches from yours. You flushed, squirming in Olruggio’s hold.

“Olly, you can let me go, you know.” You gritted, angling your head back in attempts to catch Olruggio’s eyes. 

“And risk you running again? No thanks.” He deadpanned, not unkindly. 

You oddly found yourself glad at that fact before shaking your head, cursing at yourself. You had left them. They weren’t your people anymore. They shouldn’t be kind and you shouldn’t crave their kindness.

“You can let her go. She won’t run– she can’t.” Qifrey concluded, dropping the necklace, allowing it to thump back against your chest, though he didn’t move back.

“Your spell was quite wrong.” 

Olruggio loosened his grip, but also chose not to move.

You huffed, rolling your eyes as you stretched your neck, relieving it from its soreness. 

“Really?” You offered, uninterested.

You couldn’t help but bask in the comfort of their presence. You should be repulsed or even alarmed by how close they were, but all you felt was familiarity. A dull ache of remembrance at how life used to be.

“Next time you should use a sort of binding spell on yourself. Something that would make you temporarily impossible to hold onto.” Qifrey continued, ever the critique.

You felt a brow quirk up in amusement, “I thought you were against forbidden magic?”

“I am.” He corrected, voice suddenly sharp. “But that never seemed to stop you before.” You couldn't help but wince at his sudden tone switch. 

You had always found yourself rendered useless in anxiety when Qifrey would switch to the meaner version of him, threatening and erasing memories. Though usually, it was never aimed at you.

“Can someone explain what the hell is going on?” Olruggio grumbled.

You looked towards Qifrey, almost instinctively, to find his gaze already focused on you.

You sighed, turning to better face both of them.

“I wrote a new spell. One that would repel whomever was touching me. But, it backfired and instead I’m bonded to them.” 

Olruggio stared at you blankly before moving his gaze to Qifrey as it to verify what you were saying.

You rolled your eyes, “I’m not lying.”

“Well, it’s not like you haven’t lied to us before.” Olruggio bit back without missing a beat.

You bit your tongue, looking down to your nails.

They weren’t wrong. You had lied. You had abandoned them. You had switched sides.

“So what then?” 

You look up at the sound of Qifrey’s question. 

“How long does it last?”

You furrowed your brows, wracking your brain for some answer you could give them.

You hated this. You hated not knowing something that you were supposed to be a master at. What could you possibly tell them? That you didn’t know? That you had acted rashly just as you always had? You were supposed to be changed– better. That’s why you were with the brimmed hats, afterall. What would they think when they realized you had acted just as stupidly as you used to act.

Qifrey brought his hand up to poke, noncommittally at your cheek. 

You looked up at him to find his gaze trained on you expectantly. 

How could they stand to look at you with something akin to kindness? How could they not feel anything but red hot anger? 

You turned to look at Olruggio. If you squinted you might even dare to say he was looking at you with a look of distant fondness.

You felt your stomach twist. 

“I don’t know.” 

“You don’t know?” 

“No.”

The three of you sat in silence. You fiddled with the blades of grass under you. 

How would this even work? Would you stay at the Atelier? Would you become close to those four girls of theirs? Or would the brimmed hats track you down? You had become somewhat valuable to them, your innovations fueling a lot of their movement. How would they react when you didn’t come back at the end of the week? “Stay.” Qifrey’s voice came out so quiet you almost missed it.

You stared at him in shock. He wanted you to stay? After everything? After all the time that passed? After what you had become?

You turned to look at Olruggio, craving a confirmation from him too. 

He stared back at you with furrowed brows. 

“And when the brimmed hats come back for her?”

You flinch at the accusation in his voice, no matter how true it was.

“I don’t know. What choice do we have though?” Qifrey questioned, voice hushed as if trying for a semblance of privacy.

Privacy from you.

You felt something twist bitterly in your stomach. Suddenly, for the first time, you felt as if you were on the outside of your little trio.

They argued back and forth for a little longer before turning their attention back to you. You can’t help but flush under the heat of their stares.

Olruggio cleared his throat, “Fine. You stay. Just until we figure this–” He gestured between the three of you.

Qifrey pushed off the ground, dusting his clothes off before holding his hand out to Olruggio and then to you.

Just like old times. You see the realization hit him too. How natural it felt. As if no time had passed at all.

You stare at it before pushing off the ground yourself, leaving his hand suspended and empty.

“The atelier is just past this hill.” Olruggio mumbled.

“I know.” You respond before you could think.

“Right.” Olruggio offered back, awkwardly.

You cursed yourself as the two began the trek back.

How could this possibly work? You would be stupid to delude yourself into thinking things would be how they used to. The two of them were as close as ever– closer even. And you were a brimmed hat. 

You gasp at the now familiar pull in your chest, yanking you hard into Qifrey’s back. He stumbled, huffing in surprise at the force of your speed. Olruggio turned, closing his hand around your waist and Qifrey’s chest in attempts to stop the momentum of your collision.

“Sorry– sorry” You spluttered, blushed red in embarrassment. “I’ll keep up.”

Olruggio sighed, turning away from you to keep walking, followed quickly by Qifrey.

They didn’t wait for you, but they didn’t have to. 

You knew your way home.

Author's note: If you wanna be on my taglist just say so in comments!

ALSO GUYS IM SORRY IK THE VOTE SAID ONESHOT/MORE INFO BUT I DIDN'T WANNA SPOIL AND IM TEMPTED TO MAKE A PART TWO... But hope yall like!

[starkkat]

The Cure

Summary: You should really stop seeking Qifrey out. It's never the reunion you want it to be; it's messy and angry and it's only ever a temporary relief from the complicated world of the Brimmed Caps. But you can't help yourself, so you continue to find him. And he continues to let you leave when all you have to argue is re-hashed.

Pairing: Qifrey x Brimmed Cap!reader

Word Count: 1.4k~

Content/Warnings: implied SPOILERS for the plot of wha, mentions of disability/chronic pain, angst, exes, hurt no comfort, angry makeout

A/N: yes i am projecting onto reader because i would in fact be bitter enough about witch society being unwilling to use magic to heal to join the brimmed caps as a chronic pain girly. not proofread! enjoyyyy <3

The rain is heavy, almost deafening as the droplets strike the canopy of leaves above your head, but the silhouette of the witch you’re tailing is shielded from the downpour by a sphere of shimmering magic. He’s stooped over in his little bubble of sunshine, plucking some mushrooms from the ground into a basket. It’s been hours of this, lurking just out of sight as you battle internally over whether you really want to speak to him. Whether it would break or mend your heart to hear his voice again.

Your body is beginning to protest the cold of the rain, joints groaning in discomfort as you shift up from the crouch you had held in the brush. You step carefully from the cover of the trees and make your way towards the grey cloaked witch, your approach concealed by the pattering of the rain until you step into the protective bubble.

“Mind sharing your umbrella?”

Qifrey recoils from the sound of your voice as if he’s been burned. As he turns to fix his gaze on you, the glowering expression on his face intensifies when he sees the brimmed cap rested on your head. You should be used to that look by now, but it still sends a brief pang of hurt through your chest.

“Must you always look so venomous when I visit?”

“What do you want?”

Despite the scowl he’s still wearing like armor, there’s a tinge of gentle sadness in his voice as he straightens up. You pout half-heartedly at the way he’s withdrawn his hands into his cloak, obviously in search of his components.

“Just to talk,” You lift your hat from your head, beginning to wring the rainwater from your soaked hair. “To see how you’re doing; how the girls are.”

Qifrey scoffs coldly. “I’m swell, thanks for your concern. We’ve developed a conscience now, have we? Or are you here to collect information for your higher-ups?”

His mocking tone sparks an anger that burns deep in your chest. To suggest you possess no real regard for their well-being, knowing you abandoned witch society in pursuit of the goal he is only willing to chase in shadow, that is a disrespect that cuts deep. You place your cap back onto your head, ignoring the way the crease between his brows deepens as it obscures your eyes.

“Don’t take a moral high ground against me, Qifrey. Don’t you dare accuse me of trading the safety of those children for reputation points among the Brimmed Caps.”

“I’m supposed to believe you joined the Brimmed Caps just for the aesthetics?”

The air buzzes with a simmering tension, as if the forest itself is waiting to see which of you will escape your standoff unscathed. These trees had seen the two of you in every stage of your relationship; the awkward first kiss, the stolen moments away from the responsibilities of teaching, the fallout of realizing some things are too painful for love to mend.

“I did it for us. For you.” Angry tears pool at the edges of your eyes, hot and infuriating in their testament to your emotions. You grit your teeth and force the wavering from your voice. “Not all things can be cured within the confines of the Pact, you of all people understand that; I’m not sorry for having the sense to seek out a solution you’re too cowardly to even consider.”

“Oh, I’m the coward?” Qifrey takes a threatening step towards you, his one eye wide with frustration. “You want to accuse me of cowardice as you hide beneath that brim?”

This was not how you wanted this encounter to pan out. As delusional a hope it was, each time you came you wished for a happier reunion. It never was. You begin to retreat, to put some distance between yourself and him, but Qifrey lunges forward as if on instinct and captures your wrist in his hand.

“Face me and tell me what makes your path deserving of my respect, Brimmed Cap.” He spit the words at you with such vigor that it must knock all sense from your mind.

A tidal wave of emotions crashes through you, and your hand closes around the golden pendant that joins the two halves of his cloak together. You yank him to you, and before your lips have even met, he’s thrown his willowy arms around you, holding you so tightly it hurts. The kiss is desperate and harsh, it’s almost cathartic. You feel your anger dissipate, as if it was merely a toxin you needed Qifrey to siphon from your bloodstream. You lock your arms around his neck, desperate for this to last forever. If you could not have his love, you would drown yourself in his hatred. This messy, hostile tension would have to substitute for the gentle kind of companionship you had once before. He pulls away from you, breathing heavily, and you can only afford enough time for a few gulps of air before you’re pulling his face back to yours. It’s as if the second he withdraws you’ll come unraveled, too fragile to return to the bitter reality of who you both are. This kiss tastes like salt, warm tears that you can’t determine the source of. He’s released his grip on your waist, tangling his long slender fingers up into your hair and knocking your hat from your head.

And then the rain drops onto the two of you like a sheet.

The seal Qifrey had drawn to ward of the water is crumpled in the palm of his hand, ruined in the intensity of your embrace. The drenching is a harsh return to earth; Qifrey shudders with the sudden cold and pulls away from you, sucking in gasps of air as he tries to process what just happened between you. There’s a pain in his expression that makes you want to reach for him, but it feels wrong to now that the moment is over.

“Tell me it’s worthwhile.” Qifrey is boring holes into you with the intensity of his gaze, that blue eye zeroed in on you as if he can see the doubt laced into your heart. You pick up your cap, anxious to replace the shield of the brim onto your head. “Tell me the shred of hope to find some way to be healed with magic was worth throwing your life away. That you don’t regret giving up all you’ve lost in accepting forbidden magic.”

He doesn’t need to elaborate what exactly you gave up. The words hang unspoken in the damp air of the forest.

Tell me it was worth losing me.

Now that his spell is gone, the moisture feels suffocating; though that might just be your heart lodged in your throat that’s making it hard to draw breath.

You’re grateful that the very cap he’s condemning shields your face some as you feel the tears you’ve been collecting again finally cascade down your cheeks. He would take them as surrender; as evidence that you thought you’d made a mistake in pursuing forbidden magic to try and revive the practice of healing witches.

He would be wrong.

“We could have found ways to ease the pain.” Qifrey’s voice is still stern, but it lacks the bite of true anger. “Olly could have made you some contraption to help you manage it, to help make drawing easier.”

You flex your hands anxiously within your cloak, the dull ache you know will crescendo into agony after a day spent in the chilling rain making itself known with each movement. No number of herbs, Healing Spire visits, or warming contraptions from Olruggio could rid you of that horrible pain nestled deep in your bones.

“We would have kept looking for our antidotes together. You would have had my love to soothe your pain.” The slightest crack is there in the words my love.

“Your love was never going to be my cure.”

The guilt that strikes you as you say it seems to tilt the earth beneath you; you feel sick.

“Then why do you return to me like a moth to flame? Why torture us both with ghosts of what was?”

There’s no good answer you can give. He’s a vice to you, a reprieve from the darkness of your world that you selfishly seek out like an antidote to your fear. He can’t save you, but he’s like the umbrella spell in a way, a patch of sun to retreat to when the sky unleashes a downpour.

“Until next time, Qifrey.” You tug the brim back down to conceal your eyes, closing out your own umbrella spell and once more shielding the small clearing from the heavy rain. You leave behind the seal as you turn your back on the silver-haired witch, a feeble attempt at an apology for ripping open old wounds.

Perhaps one day there will be a world in which you two can reconcile your differences. But for today, you must leave him. Even if it’s a pain more agonizing than any physical ache you’ve ever experienced.

──────•✦•──────

ˋ°•*⁀➷ part 2 | m.list | more qifrey works

──────•✦•──────

Creds to @/pixopix for divider!

[poketfriend-blog]

There should be a chapter of Witch Hat Atelier Kitchen where Iguin breaks into the Atelier in the middle of the night. Then makes a delicious meal using some messed up forbidden magic, prepares a serving for everyone and then just leaves. In the morning girls assumed that their teachers surprised them with a awesome breakfast while Qifrey and Olruggio thought it was them who did it. Breakfast tasted divine so no one questioned that.

[r1verrat]

My wife, extremely stoned: Here's how Witch Hat Atelier is going to end. You know how in star wars at the end Ahsoka isn't a jedi or a sith just kind of in between? Well what's in between a Pointed and a Brimmed cap? A half brimmed cap, so a baseball cap—

[miiroki]

𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐱 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐭! 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 ೃ 𐙚⋆. ˚࿔ 𝗺𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁

The weight of the heavy, red cloak of his uniform always felt twice as heavy at the end of the day.

Easthies unclasped the fastens at his collar, his fingers slightly stiff from hours of gripping his staff and signing disciplinary decrees. His eyes ached. As the captain of his squad, the burden of maintaining order among the Pointed Caps, of hunting down those who dared to transgress the laws of magic, rested squarely on his shoulders.

He closed the door to his private quarters, letting out a rare, exhaustive sigh. The room was sparse, functional, and devoid of the whimsical comforts other witches favored. He was looking forward to nothing more than a few hours of dreamless sleep.

Then, he stopped.

A cool draft brushed against the back of his neck. His gaze snapped to the stone arched window. It was unlatched. Barely a finger’s width ajar, but enough to set every instinct he possessed on a razor's edge.

Easthies didn’t hesitate. His hand gripped his pen instinctively, his posture locking into a defensive stance. He scanned the shadows of his room, his sharp eyes cutting through the dim candlelight, searching for the telltale glimmer of forbidden glyphs or an intruder’s silhouette.

Instead, a faint, unnatural mist began to roll over the sill. It swirled with a quiet, mesmerizing grace, pooling onto the stone floor before condensing into a shape right behind him.

Before he could spin around, a pair of arms wrapped gently over his shoulders from behind. A familiar, soft warmth pressed against his back, and a teasing voice whispered directly into his ear.

"Miss me?"

Easthies didn’t flinch. The rigid tension in his shoulders slowly, begrudgingly melted away. He let out a long, slow breath, closing his eyes for a fraction of a second.

"You are incredibly foolish," Easthies murmured, his voice low and raspy from the long day, though he made no move to push her away. "You could be killed just trying to cross into this territory. What are you doing here?"

You let out a soft, melodic laugh, resting your chin on his shoulder, completely unbothered by his stern tone. "Please, Easthies. Give me some grace. I wouldn't dare be that careless. Besides, you didn't answer my question. Did you miss me?"

He didn't answer right away. His mind drifted, pulling him back through the years, peeling away the layers of the hardened man he had become.

He remembered when you were both just small apprentices, studying under the same roof. Even back then, your genius was undeniable. You possessed a breathtaking prowess for magic, drawing clean glyphs with a creativity that left teachers marvelling. But alongside that talent was a bottomless, insatiable curiosity, a desire to know what lay beyond the rigid boundaries established by the dynamic of the pointed caps.

That curiosity had eventually led you down a forbidden path. You had chosen the Brimmed Cap, embracing the wild, restricted magic that the rest of society feared.

And he? He had joined the Knights Moralis. He became the shield and the sword meant to eradicate exactly what you had become.

By all rights, I should report you, he thought, a familiar, bitter irony twisting in his chest. I should draw my pen and execute the law on the spot.

He had told himself that the first night you snuck into his quarters years ago. He had told himself that dozens of times since. Yet, every single time you appeared like a phantom in the night, his resolve crumbled. He loved you too much. He was selfish—disgustingly so, by his own moral standards—for turning a blind eye to a Brim Hat.

But even with that love, he could never join you. The mere thought of becoming a Brim Hat himself, of breaking the fundamental laws of their world, filled him with a deep, visceral disgust. He was a creature of order; you were a creature of the forbidden. They were two forces that should have destroyed each other on sight.

Instead, he turned around in your embrace, his hands coming up to gently grip your wrists. He looked down into your eyes, his expression a mix of exhaustion and affection.

"Be careful," he said, his voice dropping to a fierce, quiet whisper. "If the guards catch even a whisper of your ink..." He trailed off, shaking his head. He looked toward his bed. "Spend the night. If you're going to risk your life to come here, you might as well stay put where it's safe."

A radiant smile broke across your face. "I'd love to."

With a soft sigh of contentment, you reached up and slid the wide-brimmed hat from your head, setting it carefully on his desk. Without an ounce of hesitation, you climbed into his bed, pulling the heavy, unadorned blankets up to your chin.

Easthies watched you, a faint, barely visible softening in his eyes. His bed was notoriously uncomfortable, stiff, practical, and meant for a soldier, not a regular witch. He complained about it to himself most days. But as he extinguished the candles, removed his heavy outer coat, and lay down beside you, the stiffness of the mattress seemed to vanish.

You immediately slid closer, snuggling into his side and resting your head against his chest. Easthies wrapped an arm around you, pulling you close, burying his face into your hair.

For a few hours, the rules didn't exist. The forbidden magic of the Brim Hats didn't exist. In the quiet sanctity of the dark room, listening to the steady rhythm of each other's breathing, they were just two small apprentices again, finding comfort in the only person who truly understood them.