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“Come on.”
The mostly dead mass hanging on his left was becoming more burdensome by the step. However, letting go, even to catch his breath, wasn’t a possibility. The horses were gone but they needed to get to the lake. He had to get Qifrey there. His throat letting go grunt over grunt to try and vocalize its body’s exhaust, Oruggio wasn’t listening.
“We have to make it to the lake” as if speaking his desperate wish into existence could aid it.
“Oru”. Qifrey’s voice slowly travelled to him. Gruff. He didn’t have the time. Qifrey had to save his strength, and he had to bring Qifrey to the lake. Soon. “Not without the horses, we can’t, it’s too late.”
It wasn’t, it wasn’t too late. Oruggio could feel the life coming from the body next to him. Qifrey could still talk. And most importantly he had magic. It wasn’t too late. Qifrey was going to live. “It’s too late”.
They had barely made it out of the forest, they still had a long way to go, stopping was out of the question.
Qifrey’s life, while retiring, was surely packing the witch’s will with her. And it’s in an eerie manner that she seemed to pass onto his friend. The limper Qifrey, the stronger Oruggio. Yet a dying’s life can’t make for resurgence of strength in the living ; it’s together that they collapse in the sodden grass.
He momentarily let his muscles slacken and his lungs get the air they desperately craved. “All your magic, Oru, and you can’t save my life”.
The absoluteness of their situation was gradually creeping to him. They had to get up. “I can, I’m not going to lose you.”
Getting up. He had to get themselves back up. Quick. He laced his arms around Qifrey torso, to lift him up again– “Just-just-just hold me”.
Oruggio’s enervated heart received each of these words the way Qifrey’s body had received Mordred’s sword. Fatally.
“Please”. One single shared look consumed Oruggio’s stubbornness to get back up. He stopped his legs’ struggle and stayed sat. Qifrey in his arms. Breathing was becoming arduous for his friend. “There’s- there’s so- there’s something I want to say”.
No. Oruggio could see where this was going. “You’re not, you’re not going to say goodbye” This wasn’t the end.
“No…Oru” the nickname earned through years of shared life now sounded miserable. Oruggio didn’t want to hear it. “Oru” was for when they were too short of breath to speak properly in between kisses. It was for when they were too short of breath to speak properly laughing together in the dark of their kitchen. It was for when they were too short of breath to utter anything beside the other’s name. It wasn’t for when he couldn’t breathe properly because his organs were shutting down before death.
“Everything you’ve done”. Disguised goodbyes do not hold less meaning or hurt less. Yet what is there to do but listen, suck in every second. Each shortening breath both blessing and curse. Each lingering blink stilling him soul and body, not knowing when the eyelid will last close.
His friend struggled the rest of the sentence, either by pride or lack of strength, he couldn’t tell: “I know now. For me, for Camelot ; for the kingdom you helped me build.” Lost in the moment, he replied that he would have done it without him. Which was a lie.
Qifrey smiled. “Maybe”. Oruggio smiled too.
“I want to say something I’ve never said to you before” this time Qifrey couldn’t keep a painful grunt from coming out.
Oruggio was listening,
watching,
touching,
smelling,
tasting ; all of his sense were devoted to the one he’d promised to be done apart from in death only.
“Th-thank you.”
Words are able to deliver our thoughts, however our affect is not part of our thoughts; hence language sometimes being short for it. Oruggio was congesting with an ineffable sensation.
He slid his hand off his friend’s shoulder to reverently caress the silvery hair with his practiced hand, the wordless language of lovers.
Under his hand Qifrey was stationary. “Qifrey, hey”. No. “No. Qifrey”. Understanding slowly making its way. “Qifrey”.
“Stay with me.” The indescribable shredding of one’s being expressed by an unobtainable plead. “Qifrey”. Words or not, there was no language for Qifrey to understand anymore when Oruggio cradled his head. “No.”
He’d been witness to Qifrey losing his breath and now the very opposite was happening to him. The air was clogging his lungs, he had too much life in him. His respiration was excessive. He didn’t need all of that oxygen. Oruggio and Qifrey had become so entangled that his brain was treating Qifrey like an extension of itself that needed reanimation. But this solely served as the deplorable reminder that they might have been one in soul; they weren’t in body. Oruggio might have been born a whole human, he’d just been halved.
A primal scream broke out of his throat. Qifrey’s head was still nestled in his hands. Tears joined the screams.
He carefully picked up his beloved’s head to conjoin their foreheads. More tears.
Through the blur of his tears, he watched the man that was no longer under him. There was nothing on his mind. Only the blaring ache splitting him. He was alike a house that has just been robbed of all its furniture. Comfortable home reduced to a vacant building. The pain was echoing on the walls of his mind due to the loss of its furniture.
He closed his eyes, foreheads still connected. The screaming had stopped, not the tears. The silence that replaced his hollering left, only emphasizing the unbearable void in his head. He screamed again. Cried harder.
His throat started to rasp and his eyes to burn.
His eyes ran out of tears before his cries eventually lost in intensity. His strength had left him too. The only thing now differentiating him from Qifrey was the rugged rising of his torso.