Tartah

**Tartah** (タータ, *Tāta*) is a young boy who helps his grandfather, Mr. Nolnoa, to run the magic supply shop The Starry Sword. While he comes from a line of witches and isn't an Unknowing, Tartah has a disease, "Silverwash", which gives everything he sees a silvery sheen; this prevents him from seeing colors correctly, so he hasn't been trained in the use of magic.

## Appearance

Tartah is a young boy with messy orange- brown hair and silver eyes. He typically wears a short, light green cloak that ends in points over a simple pale beige shirt with dark pants and boots. He's not seen wearing it often, but he also has a green pointed hat.

Tartah's full appearance from the back.
## Personality

Tartah is a focused young boy who wants to be able to help the people around him. Due to his Silverwash, he has not undergone proper training to be a witch despite being born one. Because of this, he can quickly get annoyed when people don't understand his circumstances and he has grappled with how his illness keeps him from becoming a witch. Tartah can be incredibly motivated when he wants to help someone like he was with Coco when she was sick.

Soon after resolving to fully become a witch despite his disability, Tartah begins studying medicine with Custas.

## Plot

### Draconic Labyrinth Arc

 **Spoiler**

Tartah is first introduced when Coco is walking up the stairs in The Starry Sword shop. She sees him looking down at an Ink Wand he is carving, trying to make sure it is straight and even. Later, as Qifrey is trying to find his apprentices who went missing, Tartah mentions that he saw the girls run out of the shop, chasing after a witch with a mask of an eye that covered his face.

**End of spoiler.**
### Twin Bottle Arc

 **Spoiler**
Qifrey and Coco, on their way to the Starry Sword, meet Tartah who opens shop for them. He notices Coco hurt her ankle and asks her to follow him at the back of the shop so he can give her something for her wound. While he's preparing the remedy, Coco pesters him with questions about all the ingredients in the shop. He describes what he can on the shelves while tending to her wound, and gets confused at Coco's excitement, as he would much prefer working in an atelier. As Coco is trying to grab a jar on a high shelf, a huge flashing light illuminates the shop, making them topple down the shelves. While no jar broke, Tartah panics, having just lost all his shelf organization.

He tells Coco to leave and explains the reason he's unable to study as a witch and to reorganize the shelves is because of his Silverwash.

Tartah goes to apologize to his grandfather for the mess in the shop, upon which he notices the old man has no memory of the flash of light that just occurs. Tartah is confused and concerned.

**End of spoiler.**
### An Inky Investigation

 **Spoiler**
Tartah bumps into a panicked Qifrey holding sick Coco, asking for directions to the Kahln hospital. After reaching the hospital facility, Qifrey thanks Tartah, but the boy is still suspicious of him after what he saw in his grandfather's shop and jumps on the occasion to ask Qifrey more questions about it. Qifrey immediatly responds positively, voicing his joy in teaching, which puts Tartah off as his question has nothing to do about learning magic. The conversation is interrupted as the two are called to Coco's side by a nurse. Tartah watches Qifrey summon water to help, and he tells Tartah to wait for his questions, as it is not the right moment, with Coco ill. The boy agrees and leaves to head home.

He is interrupted in his commute by the ferryman, who refuses to have him aboard as he doesn't have his witch hat with him. Realizing he forgot it, he looks around town, eventually returning to Coco's room at the hospital, where he finds both the hat and a feverish Coco crying in her sleep. He wakes her up. There are no doctors or adults around, so he decides to look for a way to help Coco himself, starting by easing our her fever. Unfortunately, the medicine kept in the room has no label, so his disability prevents him from knowing what the bottles contain. Tartah is angry that he cannot help. He has burst of inspiration while trying to get Coco a drink with a vapor bubble, and uses the contraption to extract water from the medicine to help telling the bottles apart. This greatly helps, but he is left with three bottles of identical powder.

Tartah apologizes to Coco, telling her he couldn't help, and she gets out of bed to draw to help him. She explains spells to Tartah, trying to demonstrate one that reconstitutes the ingredients from their powder form but, sick, her hands are too weak and shakey to draw it well. Tartah then uses his skills at balance and precision he learned as a crafter to redraw the spell in a cleaner way. This works and, overjoyed he managed to write a successful spell, he runs to the storage room to get some tranqileaf medicine, as none of the three bottles he had singled out contained it. There, is he caught by the head nurse and scolded for his irresponsibility in trying to treat Coco himself. He stays at her side and falls asleep on her bed. After a while, Qifrey comes back and upon finding him there, covers him with his cape as a makeship blanket.

The next day, Coco feels way better, and Qifrey brings the two children out, where Mr Nolnoa is waiting, worried that his grandson had not come home. Seeing both adults together, he remembers to ask about the incident at the shop, and both answer they ignore what he is talking about, easing his worry a little. Tartah leaves with his grandpa on the ferry, yelling to Coco he is now determined to become a witch, and that he will make her a special pen.

**End of spoiler.**
### Silver Eve Arc

 **Spoiler**
The next morning, Tartah and Coco go spend time together out in the fields surrounding the Atelier. Coco tries to tell him something but they are interrupted by Tetia. After their breakfast, Tartah, Coco and Qifrey take the windowway to Kahln to bring Tartah home, but the nurses take Qifrey. Left alone with Coco, the two run into Custas who falls from a staircase and is caught by the duo. Tartah discovers Coco and Custas know each other already, and the boy teases him. A doctor arrives to pick up Custas, and to Tartah's dismay, he reveals to Coco they have been studying apothecary together, which is illegal for a witch. Tartah explains to her it's a secret and she's the only witch who knows.

The next day, he goes to study herbs with Custas in the hospital. Coco goes to find them and the three have a conversation that heats up and ends with Custas leaving, upset at the two witches. Tartah and Coco overhear him talking with Dagda, who just came back from a day's work as a mercenary. The boy is worried about him taking on a risky job and asks him to abandon him. Tartah then explains to Coco he noticed how inaccessible the streets of Kahln are to sealchair users. His own disability made him emphasize with Custas' situation, and he's upset he can't do much more to help his friend than study herbs together. Coco decides they'll try to help him together.

The two then work together to work on a spell for their friend, Tartah visiting the atelier every day. He carves sealchair legs, and Coco tries to pair them with spells, but all ideas they have turn out to have more drawbacks than positives. Finally, Coco has the idea to make a flying device, that removes the need to walk on the ground altogether, and they create the Wingcloak. He goes to see Custas at the hospital to give the spell to him, and his friend is overjoyed to see him again, as he hadn't visited since their last heated conversation. He takes Custas to meet Coco outsides town to test their invention. Custas loves it, and Dagda soon joins the children. Tartah and Coco panic, thinking he's going to scold them for giving Custas something dangerous, and explain it's perfectly safe, but Dagda thanks them for helping his son instead. Custas apologizes to Tartah and Coco for lashing out at them, and the four part ways.

Tartah and Mr. Nolnoa then head to pitch their tent at the festival, soon joined by Qifrey's atelier. Tartah gets to show Coco his idea - a series of adjustable drawing pens, that you can put together to your liking, to make a perfect pen. He is warmly congratulated by his grandfather and the atelier alike for his idea. Using his technique, he made a pen just for Coco, as he had promised earlier. The two go watch Coco's magic attraction, and meet a little girl who thanks Coco for it, making her uncomfortable, which Tartah wonders about. He takes Coco behind the tent to rest as she looks very upset. There, she cries and confesses to him her past as an Unknowing, which Tartah previously doubted, and the boy gives her a hug and reassures her.

Their moment is interrupted by Custas, who butts in the conversation. They notice he has new legs. Tartah enquires about them and gets attacked by the boy who reveals they are forbidden magic and uses them to constraint him violently against a wall. He tries to ask how he learned magic, but Custas, angry that he lied to him in the past, refuses to answer, asking his own questions instead. Tartah answers as best as he can, and Custas leaves after placing two magic bracelets on him and Coco to force them to prove they'll obey him, and ask the two help him and Ininia meet the king.

Still confused from the encounter, the two wander the city streets trying to find what to do. Tartah refuses to tell the professors, afraid they'll turn in Custas to the Knights Moralis. He wants to keep everything a secret. They then run into Dagda, who warns them about the neighborhood they were about to enter and tells them he is looking for his son. Coco asks to hear him sing, and the man accepts. There, the two children notice he has a spell tattooed onto his chest.

**End of spoiler.**
## Relationships

### Mr. Nolnoa

Mr. Nolnoa is Tartah's grandfather. He lives with Mr. Nolnoa and works at his shop as a carver of Ink Wands. He seems to like his grandfather, as he eagerly shares talks with him about Coco when he befriended her after she got sick.

### Qifrey

Tartah does not know Qifrey well, but distrusts him as he suspects that Qifrey wiped Mr. Nornoa’s memory. He seems to be trusting of Qifrey at the moment, as the latter seems to have no memory of the incident either.

### Coco

At first, Tartah did not take incredibly kindly to Coco. Coco was unware he was afflicted with Silverwash and thus asked him questions about colors to which he got incredibly frustrated and snapped at her.

However, when Coco becomes sick Tartah returns to her sick room to look for his hat and stays to help her. She then helps him by coming up with a spell to help him see the original form of certain medicines so he could find what would help her. Through this experience, he grows a greater appreciation for Coco and becomes friends with her, promising to make a special Ink Wand just for her and would use his own magic to travel and bring it to her.

### Custas

Tartah meets Custas in Kahln. He runs into the boy in the street after he fell from his sealchair and broke it, being cornered by thieves who wanted to steal it from him. Tartah bumps in, feigning that he will call his master to help with the situation, and making enough of a ruckus for the thieves to leave. He helps Custas up, who is heartbroken after destroying his chair, and repairs the chair's leg for him using glue he carried around. After that, the two become friends. Since Custas is staying at the same medical facility as his grandfather, Tartah visits him regularly, and the two start learning about medicinal herbs together, Tartah breaking the witches code for his friend.

Upon spending time with the boy, Tartah learns how miserable he feels in his current situation. He emphasizes with Custas, being himself disabled in a way that limits his options in life and greatly weights on him. He pairs up with Coco to make him a new sort of mobility device that will allow him to move around better, as his sealchair has limited movement and he saw Custas fall from it several times. The two witches create the Wingcloak, making Custas extremely happy. Tartah regrets he did not break the code further by teaching Custas magic, which would have made his traveling life much easier.

Custas reappears later, now a brimhat, made aware by Ininia of the gatekeeping done by the Pointed hats. He is angry at Tartah for lying to him about magic and despite what Tartah replies, ignores his answers, claiming he cannot trust a liar.

## Trivia

* Tartah and his grandfather's cloaks are short and light - a type preferred by stationers, to avoid getting dirty from preparing wands and ink.

## References

1. ↑ "The Cloaks of Witch Hat" special, included in volume 8