Chapter Text
If Alaira was a good storyteller, Qifrey was doubly so. Olruggio found himself enraptured by history he'd heard thrice before, though he would be the last to admit that the tale's contents had little to do with his sustained focus.
He'd gathered a handful of glances as a child: a flash of white at the corridor's end, the brush of a tassel scraping the ground near his ankle; a rattling pupil rimmed by delicate lashes of painted white and shadows like smeared charcoal beneath them.
Each detail he'd clutched uselessly to his chest, unsure of why the boy who hung in the waxen shadow of Beldaruit's sealchair beguiled him to this extent, but certain that he would understand, that all his phantom aches would fade, if only he could get a closer look.
It seemed that magnetism persisted in Qifrey's current age, as he'd ensnared three audience members alongside the cordfish he'd staked for lunch.
"Mankind is truly terrifying," he said, laying his hands in his lap. The fire blistered in its pit, sparks flaking across Qifrey's amber-lined face. "As is the fact that so few of us acknowledge how easily terrifying things may come to pass."
Geez. A grim reminder for an equally grim tale. Olruggio couldn't fault him for imparting blunt advice - better to hammer in the severity of magic's consequences now than later - but his gentleness felt at odds with the harsh reality of his words.
Even at the tale's conclusion he didn't quite seem to register the girls' horror, a storyteller lost in the sway of his own spindle.
"But, master," Coco said, bunching up the fabric of her uniform with restless hands, "Magic exists to make people happy, doesn't it? To help people, and to make the world vibrant, right?"
When Qifrey's head lifted, his expression reminded Olruggio of a sheet snapped of its wrinkles, a soft, blank, cotton-white expanse to be folded into itself by the laundress.
"If you, the future witches of the world, believe so…" his pensive mouth softened into a closed-lipped smile, "then surely, yes, all will be well."
That was sufficient to reassure the girls, and they exchanged grins. Olruggio's brow furrowed. There was the discrepancy again, where Qifrey's tone didn't match his words, but he couldn't identify what lay underneath. It was like trying to glean the color of a geode’s crystal from the outside.
"Sir?"
Qifrey's hand extended across the fire, offering a skewer of artfully tied cordfish. "It's a bit charred, but otherwise safe for consumption."
"My thanks." Olruggio accepted the skewer, its ashen end staining his fingertips black. He gave Qifrey a sidelong glance. "And there's no need to bother with formalities."
"My apprentice insists on a show of good manners," Qifrey replied blithely, watching as Coco bit into her share with relish. "I wouldn't want to disappoint."
"Suppose I should be referring to you as sir, then?" he joked. "Lord witch, perhaps?"
Qifrey poked at the flames. "As your prefer."
Well.
The sheen that possessed Qifrey as he recounted the macabre gen of Romonon had retreated, and every response was cumbersome, a thin line by which Olruggio could barely dangle from. He'd hoped a bit of repartee might lighten the mood, but Qifrey was painfully disinterested in anything resembling banter. He seemed content to stroke the fire, exchanging invisible musings with the coals and bones of their breakfast.
Qifrey was under no obligation to be anything other than distantly polite, and even this was a leap in progress from his illusiveness at the Great Hall. Back then, he'd departed from every room Olruggio frequented, and soon after, vanished from his radius entirely.
Had he unknowingly insulted the man at some point, permanently severing any chance at friendship? He searched his memory for a crucial interaction they might have shared in the past, but he couldn't recall occupying the same space long enough to establish rancor.
Qifrey didn't seem the type to nurture a deep-seated grudge. But then, what did Olruggio know of Qifrey's type?
Oh, bugger that. This was a level of catastrophizing he refused to submit to. He wouldn't let himself paint Qifrey as some irate stranger based on a collection of childhood scraps and a bit of awkwardness. He'd seen the way Qifrey talked to his apprentices, the tenderness by which he regarded Alaira.
Maybe he preferred solitude, or wasn't much of a conversationalist, but Olruggio had no right to scrutinize. Wasn't like he was a cup of sunshine most days, either.
He cleared his throat. "What about you?"
Qifrey's head swiveled his way. "What?"
Olruggio gestured at the skewers the girls had pitched into the fire. "You've only prepared three. Aren't you going to eat?"
"Ah…" Qifrey trailed off. "I'm not particularly hungry."
"Worried about your apprentice?" Olruggio posited. "She seemed taken off guard back there."
He sighed. "The fault was mine. I had no wish to deceive her, but-" His fingers dug into the grass -"she would not take the test of her own will. At the very least, I wanted her to try. It would grant her freedom far beyond what my own tutelage could provide."
He'd never seen a downright renunciation of the tests, even by the most obstinate of children. Perhaps it was his time with Agott that made it sound so unnatural. She detested any limit to her learning, and approached all examinations confident she would surpass them. She'd been furious when he'd refused her the first two times, to the point of avoiding him for a week (which wasn't easy in a loft apartment, but by the Wise, she'd been determined).
"Mine's been spending every waking minute preparing for the damn thing, I had to bribe her to sleep. But she's been working hard, so I oughta be even. I've got a duty to take care of myself, after all."
Olruggio extended a hand, offering up the second and final cordfish on his skewer. "You want to be there to congratulate her when she comes out the other side, don't you?"
Qifrey stared at his outstretched hand. Seaside wind stirred the flames, streaks of fire flitting past in copper blurs.
"I…" He spoke with considerable effort. At last, his lips managed a feeble smile. "I would be remiss to besmirch my own teachings, wouldn't I?"
He took the skewer into his own hands, handling it with the caution of a foreign and dangerous object. He examined it for a stretch of time, unease manifesting in his tenuous grip.
Before Olruggio could ask what he'd done - because surely he'd crossed a line unknown to him - there was a shout from the girls. They had soared off to chase each other across the bank, but now they dropped beside their masters like skipping stones plunging into water.
Tetia's curls were plastered to her neck with sweat, cheeks pumped the color of springtime apples. It might have been a mild sight if not for the anxious way her fingers hooked into her hair, tugging painfully at her own scalp.
"Master!" Coco cried, trying to steady herself after the inopportune landing. "We found-"
Qifrey launched to his feet with an inhuman speed, and Olruggio could see why. In her small, callused hands, Coco held Alaira's feathered witch cap.
Olruggio walked up to Tetia, assessing her skittishness. Not wanting to exacerbate her fright, he lowered his voice to a calm murmur. "Where did you find this?"
"It was floating by the entrance of the cave," she said. Tenderly, he pried her fingers away from her hair - doubtless it would ache later if she kept this up. "Did something happen to Miss Alaira?"
Qifrey muttered something under his breath. The expression on his face was nothing short of severe. Olruggio thought to call it fear, but that wouldn't have been right. Agott had looked at him like this, once, after he first allowed her to accompany him in the field - it was a dangerous sort of anticipation, like dry kindling hissing in the heat, awaiting friction.
Coco pulled on her teacher's cloak. "Master Qifrey," she said, "are Richeh and the others alright?"
Her visible worry propelled him into action. Qifrey knelt before the girls, a hand on each scaled shoulder. "Listen, both of you. Olruggio will escort you elsewhere. Once I've sent word to the Great Hall, I'm going to head inside the cave and-"
The following juncture unfolded without warning. Qifrey clutched his apprentice's hand and assured her that they would be well, and before Olruggio could ascertain why Qifrey trusted him with his apprentice, or query about what suspicions regarding Alaira's condition he harbored, a cold shadow fell over them all.
The serpent-shaped pass tore itself from the earth, raining clods of dirt and scree upon them, and devoured the witches whole.
Dappled light trickled to the forest floor, bathing everything in smatterings of warmth. A young boy no older than twelve nursed an ailing fire, prodding at it with a long stick. He adjusted the ring of stones around the poorly dug fire pit, mouth set in a pensive line. A soft gale tugged childishly at the grasses and kept the hanging flower bulbs swaying their petaled heads.
Through the grasses came another child, his hair a daub of soot in all that sun-honeyed color, and he was shouting something that was lost in the rustling of the foliage, waving his muddied net like a flag. He dumped it at the other boy's feet and two fish, silver-backed and slick with creek-water, trembled on the packed dirt.
The dark-haired boy beamed at his prize, and the latter, who'd once sat sullenly by the fire, only watched him.
Olruggio thought he felt warmth, sunlight basting his skin. Instead, the closer to consciousness he swam, the more he felt like his head had been struck by a gavel.
His breath came out unevenly, stale, dust lining his throat. He cracked open one eye, then another. He couldn't glean much beyond blurs of shapeless color, but the pink smear in his lap reassured him enough to lean his head back again.
Without opening his eyes again, he moved his fingers (stiff, which was not a good sign) down the scaled lining of her cloak, past the clothed bend of her elbow, and halted at her wrist.
She'd clung to the inside of his cape as the serpent descended, and if his back was any indication, he'd spared her the brunt of the fall. He remembered the way she'd screamed into him as they sunk, a raw, guttural sound that reverberated against his torso like a slap.
And as their bodies had settled, limbs splayed out on the cave bottom, his student breathed out that she didn't want to die, she didn't want to die, she didn't want to die, all the way until her head lolled over his chest and she could no longer speak.
(Star of Ghodrey, please. He had called him Olruggio just the day before, ruffling his hair and thanking him for bringing in the firewood. You must help us. You must save us, witch.)
Olruggio sat up straight, hissing at the ache in his upper shoulder. There was a piercing, succinct throb in his chest; a rib or two had to be broken. The pain was an ample reminder of where his mind ought to be.
The air was damp, and the ground below was coarse with grains of sand. It was too dim to see much but the rock formations clinging to the ceiling, a stone belly of stalactites. He registered voices to his left, and craned his neck enough to see that Coco had awoken.
The young apprentice seemed largely unharmed. She peeled herself from her master's side, and a gasp escaped her at the sight of him.
Blood congealed on Qifrey's face, drying into a garish red paste at his chin. His lenses were shattered. When she departed from him, he slumped over like a sack of flour. "Master?" she murmured.
Her hand reached for his broken glasses.
Qifrey seized her wrist, pinning it by her waist with frightening precision. Coco faltered, looking between her master's face - eye flayed open like a blue caracass, his posture rigid - and his fingers, locked tightly around her hand.
"Um…" she whispered, timid in a way she hadn't been before. "I'm sorry. Your glasses are cracked. I was worried you might get cut, and-"
"Quiet," he demanded. Coco flinched, but leaned into him, searching for reassurance in his gaze. "We're not alone."
Olruggio made the mistake of looking upwards. There was a statue just above him, drinking in what little light there was to reflect a cold gleam against the cave walls. A being composed of gold, hair pinned back in solid strands of metal, the fabric of their clothes suspended in an invisible wind.
Their blank eyes, like smelted copper coins, turned to meet his.
"Turned to gold yet still alive," said Qifrey, clutching his shoulder. Blood gushed between his pale fingers. "Ancients…from the nation of Romonon."