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“I didn’t mean to hurt you like this.”
~
Olruggio has never felt such scorching rage toward his friend before. Never a time he remembers, anyway.
Which is exactly the fucking problem, isn’t it?
He’s glad to be wearing his cloak. The heavy fabric hides how much he’s trembling with the force of his anger, and how his fingers buckle the shape of Qifrey’s hat in his hand. The brim is unpinned, glyph beneath stark against the white fabric.
What did you do to me? What did you take from me?
It had been an accident. Or inexplicable curiosity. Something about the pin holding Qifrey’s hat together had started bothering him, kept drawing his attention whenever the man took off his hat - like he expected him to pull it out - a shiver of anxiety crossing his chest. Which made no sense at all. It was only a hat.
Except, when Qifrey had left it unattended and Olruggio had decided to sate this strange urge to pull it himself…
He hadn’t even known memory glyphs could be reversed, not by simple recall - hadn’t that been what Qifrey had discovered in the Tower? But how could he even trust his word on that anymore. The sight of it brought back flashes, segments of a memory he couldn’t fully retrieve, of Qifrey… forcing the hat onto his head. More than once. Expression something fearsome, visceral, deaf to his own pleas for Qifrey to stop.
The memory had started his body quaking - some emotion between fear and betrayal washing over him - and by the time Qifrey had found him, still staring at the glyph beneath the brim, it had crystallised into agony.
Perhaps the worst part about his anger is that it’s for himself. Against Qifrey. And it feels selfish.
“We… need to talk,” he’d said, dangling the hat by the ribbon. “About what you did to me.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you like this.”
What a joke.
“Then how did you mean to hurt me, Qifrey?” he spits, “You of all people… I thought you at least knew the value of memory.”
~
You could argue Qifrey had been cornered all his life. Had always just been an animal desperately pacing a cage, whether he knew it or not. But not like this. The way Olruggio holds his old tassel so carelessly, hat hanging from it like something vile, makes Qifrery’s stomach turn to ice, and he’s frozen there in the kitchen, this slightly too small room that has been their safe haven in the world for years now. And Qifrey is cornered, his feet glued to the floor. Even in the moments when he took Olruggio’s memory… It was never because of this.
His heart is stuttering and his expression is blank because he knows but doesn’t want to know that this is the moment when he finally loses him. He didn’t want it to be like this. Hurting Olruggio was inevitable but if Qifrey had just managed to sneak away…
And yet a voice at the back of his head twists horribly and says You would’ve taken the cowardly way out and run away rather than face his rightful anger.
And: Isn’t it better for him to hate you?
Yes… Qifrey wants to protect Olruggio, of course he does, but wasn’t his habit of still clinging on to him through all this always selfish? Perhaps the most selfish thing he’s ever done in his life.
And it has hurt Olruggio. Immeasurably.
Why did I think I could have this?
“…” His mouth opens and then falls closed again hopelessly.
There aren’t any words that can make it better, that’s the thing. Not even lies.
“Olruggio, I…” I can’t tell him the whole truth. It will endanger him. If I told him I’d have to take it away again. “I cherish you more than anyone…”
He has nothing to offer. He’s cornered with nothing.
He deserves so much more than I can give him.
“I would never… change you. I was so careful not to change you. But…”
These words aren’t helping. He has nothing to fix this. He’s losing him.
“I’m so, so sorry.”
He can’t deny anything. He has betrayed the trust of his dearest friend. Over and over.
~
He grits his teeth. “At least you admit it.”
Not that he could possibly deny it, with the evidence in Olruggio’s hands. The hat feels heavy, corrupted; he’d throw it to the ground if there wasn’t the risk of Qifrey snatching it up.
It’d be easy to take this too, wouldn’t it?
He draws the hat under his cloak, shielding it from Qifrey’s view - he can feel it resting against his leg. How long has this been here, Qifrey? Has it been on your head all this time?
Something about that feels sobering - a twinge of his usual instinct to scold the man for endangering himself - but that he can even feel such a thing at a time like this makes him feel sick. So careful not to change me… and I’m meant to believe that.
But he doesn’t seem like he’s lying. Not about that, at least. Memory glyphs like this didn’t replace or warp, merely stole, there’s too much left untouched for Qifrey to hide in. Everything he knows about the man pries the earnest and the evasive apart.
It’s a hollow feeling, what he’s left with. Empty, guttering fire. Nothing that he has could even point to a reason for his friend’s betrayal - all still trapped in the recesses - but it’s undeniable that Qifrey is sorry. What is he to make of that?
For my own sake… I can lie too, Qifrey.
“You know sorry won’t be good enough,” he spits, mustering what’s left of his rage to sell his bluff. “I want to hear it from you. What you wanted to hide from me. Make sure I remembered everything. Your story had better match.”
He’s trembling again.
~
Qifrey can’t lie to him, but he also can’t tell him the truth. Over and over, this has been the exact problem, the exact tension pulling tighter and tighter until it snapped and Qifrey was left scrambling for the last resort…
What do you do when the last resort isn’t good enough?
Possibly, you just fail. You just lose.
He meets Olruggio’s hard gaze silently for a long moment. Accepting it. Almost penitent in it. He can’t look away for the same reason he can’t just lie to him right now… It would be cheap. And nothing about this can be cheap, when Olruggio is and always has been worth so much.
If this is how it ends…
He is struck painfully by something Olruggio said the last time Qifrey took his memory. I’m angry at myself. And just as painfully by how much easier it was when they were children… When they told each other everything, accepted everything that was said just as easily. When the only risk was each other, which wasn’t a risk at all, it turned out.
Of course Olruggio would never have been the one to break that.
“I can’t tell you,” he says finally. Because that is as close to the truth as he can get. “I… I can’t tell anyone. If I could, of course it would be you, Or… Olruggio.” If it comes between hating me or doubting yourself… just hate me. Please. “I’m sorry but… I fear I’m not the man you’ve always had faith in anymore. I’m not sure I can ever be him again. But please believe me when I say, you have been nothing but a perfect friend to me and I…”
And what?
And I betrayed you.
And I needed to protect you, but oh, if I stop lying to myself, I also needed so desperately to try and keep you, didn’t I? To pretend for just a little while longer that nothing had changed. That’s what’s unforgiveable.
His mouth closes prematurely again.
~
Can’t tell me?
Something dark and heavy takes shape in Olruggio’s chest, filling his lungs, tightening around his heart. He has no way of knowing, not with the little he remembers, what it was he’d said to Qifrey that had forced his hand. Judgement? Threat? Olruggio can’t imagine either coming from his mouth. Not without an extended hand, at least.
But Qifrey’s pulling away like he’s afraid of… something. Distancing himself from a way out of Olruggio’s anger.
Why?!
Jaw clenched, Olruggio’s lip curls in frustration. The man I had faith in? Bitter and cynical and fighting for happiness regardless? Did you forget I was there on the worst days, or have you stopped fighting?
How did I miss that?
The tightens in his chest blossoms into renewed anger - but a stickier, spikier beast that’s all for himself. Because he hadn’t missed it. He’s sure he can’t have missed it. There’s nothing specific about it, but something foggy and absent in the last few months - holes in his memory that leak significance. Taken too.
I didn’t miss it. That’s how we got here… I noticed… and I failed you.
But… he can’t get Qifrey’s face out of his mind. What had him turning to anger first and not something gentler - the image of his closest friend barely flinching as he stole something he’d always extolled as precious above everything. No concern for the man can take away the phantom of that hat on his head. The rush of panic.
All the scattered moments he’s missing in otherwise untouched memories.
He’s been quiet too long; Qifrey’s silent too. Olruggio can barely stand to focus on his face. What should I be feeling, Qifrey? Concern or fear?
Finally, he speaks. “Is that so? Even though you’ve told me before? It hardly killed me the first time.” He can barely move his jaw from his growing fury. “Or did you tell me knowing full well it wouldn’t matter.”
He pulls out Qifrey’s hat again, ribbon woven through his fingers, dangled at arm's length between them.
“If I gave you this back now, would I forget this conversation to? If the girls were listening at the door, would they be next? I remember Beldarut praising your ‘face of a professor’ but not why that brought me such relief - why is that missing along with everything else?”
There’s not many conclusions here, are there?
“…If you want to convince me not to take this outside this atelier, you had better find something you can tell me, immediately.”
~
The girls feel like a low blow but… it isn’t. He has always been most careful with them, but when it comes down to it, they have simply never chanced upon his secrets. And isn’t that too convenient? He doesn’t have an answer for whether he would stoop that low. Even Tartar… What would he have done if Tartar had finished questioning him?
It’s not good enough not to have an answer.
And even if he could get by without ever having to lay a finger on their precious heads, he would still hurt them in the end, wouldn’t he? Just by leaving them behind. Agete, who still cannot see her own worth. Tetia, who only ever wanted to love people well enough. Riche, who has already been abandoned too many times. And Coco… Coco who has only ever had a kind heart in a world too hard for it. Inevitably, he will turn his back on them, when they still need him. He will take their home away too.
Everything he ever wanted so tenderly is here. Just… people. A place. All his own. And yet his striving for this and achieving it is exactly what has made the necessary actions so much more painful and horrible.
Is this what hoping so hard does? It can’t be so cruel, can it?
His heart thudding away is a frenzy in his own head. He’s gone absolutely still, a sort of reflex, as if to contain it.
“… Yes,” he says softly. “If I had that hat, you would forget this conversation.”
He finally looks away. Coward. Out the window. The rolling hills and the lowering sun. This place he has loved so fiercely.
“You’ve caught me over and over again, you know. Always from a different direction. But the result is the same. You’re forced to choose between me and our charges, and, because you are a good man, you always choose the girls, but…” His voice, so flat and grave, catches for just a moment. “… But you also always have faith in me. Still. You always come back, without even knowing it.”
The pain in his head is returning. He had one of his migraines earlier in the morning, slumped down with his back against the door of the bath house, running late to lessons… He is so tired.
“I don’t know what I ever did to deserve a friend like that. But you understand don’t you? With someone like that, so warm that they can’t help but forgive you in a neverending loop… I can’t let such a person throw himself into ruin for me. You have a whole life… success, connections, people who love you… I can’t let you risk any of that.”
He grits his teeth so hard that the pain in his head twinges.
“… And I’m sorry, my dear friend, but I also can’t let you stop me.”
~
It’s as though he’s been snuffed out. Qifrey’s made up his mind, it’s in the stillness of his body before he speaks but Olruggio doesn’t want to believe it.
The man’s right, of course. He clings to that last flicker of hope until the last word - that maybe Qifrey will let something slip, convince himself to talk for longer, anything, anything.
It just breaks his heart further. Because it’s not a threat, is it? It’s a severance. Qifrey taking cold, sharp steel to the tether between them and cutting it. For Olruggio’s sake.
He audibly chokes at the revelation.
Betrayal would have been kinder. But… it’s a sickening kind of betrayal in itself, isn’t it? That Qifrey would be more content to leave him in ignorance than let him truly choose.
I won’t let you take that choice again, Qifrey. You can’t become another person I don’t save. I won’t let you stop me.
There’s any number of simple spells that could immobilise a person. Conscious, or not; unharmed or not - whatever is fastest. His pen’s at his belt but-
-Oh…
Qifrey’s hat is tangled around his dominant hand. The weight, the bulk of it, drawing around it would be impossible - and Qifrey won’t wait for him to free himself. And the other options–
I couldn’t– I don’t even know what I’d be trying to take– How much of him it is–
With a broad step backwards, he grabs his pen and rakes the heated nib across the glyph, searing a jagged line through the ink and fabric. Removing the immediate threat, but not the next - whatever Qifrey intends to draw.
For that, he needs his hand free.
Sorry, my friend.
The loose stretch of ribbon burns quickly too, the rest remains around his fingers as the hat hits the ground and he’s reaching for his quire.
~
Qifrey knows his friend. As soon as Olruggio moves for his pen, Qifrey has his own out just as quickly in reciprocity. He is already drawing in his own quire, distantly amazed that his hands do not shake…
And then the flash of burning, a thin lick of flame.
Oh.
That long black ribbon that has seen so much, that has been the comforting but casual weight at Qifrey’s neck, simply… burns. So quickly and so easily. Like it was nothing but wisps of smoke to begin with.
For a split moment that’s all that exists.
The point of his pen digs into the page, hard, frozen in place and bleeding ink.
Ridiculously, foolishly, the first thought to flash across his mind is: Couldn’t I have had just one more day?
Just one more moment?
With him… with everyone…
He finishes his glyph in a sharp jerk that sets his spell somewhat off-kilter. He needs to get away from here… This can’t happen with the girls just upstairs in their dorms… His spell summons a billow of wind that, augmenting his sylph shoes, throws Qifrey crashing out through the glass of the window.
There is no finesse. It is a clumsy, shameful, cornered sort of spell. He barely registers the shards flying, cutting him.
He’s on the run already. Sooner than planned.
The horrible, cold voice of logic says I will need Coco.
That will have to wait. He hits the ground outside hard and as soon as his boots are under himself he shoots into the air again.
Away. Away. Need to get away. Away from the girls… Away so we can–
He’s just an animal, running. The thoughts barely register.
~
He’s closing his glyph as the room explodes - pots, utensils, glass flying into the pillar that snatches at the air where Qifrey’s feet just were. It probably saves Olruggio’s sight. Something still makes it past to cut his cheek and pierce his cloak, but he doesn’t notice, already careening over the ruined floor to follow Qifrey through the window.
He’d seen it. The pause of Qifrey’s hand, the inelegance of it - so unlike the man, magic unflappable even in the face of Brimhats. The remaining scrap of ribbon feels as though it’s burning his skin as he takes flight after the other.
As the wind whips past, he ties it as securely as he can to his sleeve to hold the fabric back.
Fire warms and invigorates, burns and kills. It’s his most reliable tool that he can’t possibly reach for, not even as his friend flees at a pace Olruggio won’t be able to maintain. He hasn’t got the core strength to maintain this speed with sylph shoes alone. The muscles in his stomach are already screaming.
Damnit, Qifrey, don’t make me do this.
He lets up his speed just enough to keep his hand steady - drawing his spell small and neat with a tiny sliver of glyph to finish before aiming it ahead at the soles of Qifrey’s shoes.
It occurs to him then… the girls. They’re so close to the atelier still, the noise will have roused their attention… He hopes they’re not looking as he flicks his pen and two fiery bullets rocket towards the ink holding Qifrey in the air.
~
It is fair to say that Qifrey has lost his composure.
Or perhaps it’s more like he can feel it unraveling as the wind whips his cloak about, faster and faster. He clings to his control, but the tighter he holds to it the more he can feel it slipping between his fingers. His hand still doesn’t shake at his quire, but he isn’t looking down at his work, he is staring straight ahead and barely seeing anything at all. If he can get to the lake he will be in his element entirely. He will not lose.
Something slides down his face and his first thought is blood. But then it crests his upper lip and he can taste it and ah. He’s crying.
He didn’t even know he could still do that.
He doesn’t know what he is feeling. It’s like his emotions have shut down, and he’s just the cold, distant thing he needs to be.
The thing they made him to be, right from the start.
Just be the kind Professor Qifrey she needs you to be and I’ll stick with you, just like old times.
The kinder thing he tried so hard to make himself into…
Then he’s seeing the memory of Olruggio’s raised hand… as it plucked the ribbon so easily from his own cap to offer to Qifrey, like a vow, like such easy faith that this softer person was even possible.
It all circles around in his head, scraping out big, painful pieces of him. I’ll stick with you. I’ll stick with you. I’ll be by your side.
Had he ever even expressed how happy that made him?
He snaps out of his distraction too late. He can hear the smallest whistle of something approaching, of heated air.
Trust Olruggio to be clever.
He knows where Olruggio would aim… He tries to spin out of the way at the last moment, recklessly, but only has the time to be partially successful. The first flame hits its mark, more or less, scouring his left boot. He can feel the instant his weight returns, the glyph broken.
The second flame hits him. He twisted in such a way that he stupidly put his own leg right in the line of fire and he feels a sharp burn of pain hit his knee, not with force but with enough concentration that he lets out a shout, half pain and half frustration, and then the edge of his cloak has caught fire and he’s falling.
His hands are still at his half finished glyph.
It’s water, because of course it is. It was intended to strike behind him, to slow Olruggio down.
It’s almost funny… Neither of them are very good at this. Only slowing one another down….
He can bring Olruggio down with him. That’s probably the point.
But then who will catch me?
His face twists into a horrible, pained smile. Yes, almost funny…
What am I doing?
He doesn’t know anymore. But he changes the directional keystone and finishes his glyph. Instead of assaulting Olruggio with a rush of water, the water instead encircles Qifrey, douses the flame and wraps him up in that dark, cold, suffocating silence he hates more than anything.
He’s falling. The water might protect him, but he’s still falling. He closes his eye.
What am I doing? I lost before we even started.
~
There was always a risk. But now it feels more inevitable, watching Qifrey try to evade his magic only to put his body in the line of fire. This is what came of turning his magic on others.
But what choice did I have? Qifrey’s on fire; his hand is moving on autopilot to cover the page in ‘dispel’. If I let you go, then this is out of my hands.
He’d seem what a single-minded pursuit could do to a man, after all. Qifrey, the most precious thing in his life, had been consumed by it. If Olruggio couldn’t end this now, it would become bigger than both of them - something bigger than a personal betrayal that he was duty-bound to report. Morally bound. And whoever caught up with the man wouldn’t be kind to him.
That’s why it has to be me.
Despite his body’s protest, he pivots into a dive after Qifrey, spell nearly complete when the man is engulfed in water. Idiot. Idiot! It puts out the fire, but it walls Olruggio off from his body - the water’s surface no different from brick at the speed’s they’re moving. Whether that’ll end worse for Qifrey’s body or Olruggio’s neck in the end, it’s not worth considering. The dispelling magic in his hand– his water runes are shaky and imperfect, so he draws it as big as he’s able.
He yells even though he won’t be heard.
“QIFREY-”
The bubble bursts in a violent mist, driven by his over-worked magic, and Olruggio barrels into Qifrey at a speed that jars his feet apart. Only for a moment. But it’s enough to lose vital altitude - the weight of two adults, their inertia, the weakness in his own muscles - there’s not enough room to slow down, barely enough room to turn. His torso screams at the twisting of direction.
They hit the ground like stones skipping on a lake. Something pops in Olruggio’s shoulder, then Qifrey is out of his arms and he’s rolling through white-hot pain. Skids to a halt in the cool grass. Still for a moment, gritting his teeth and still holding his pen, Olruggio’s mind goes entirely blank. His head rattles from the impact and the sickening throbbing in his left shoulder. He’s lost his hat.
Well caught, a part of him praises. He dry heaves against the dirt.
There’s smears of mud and grass all over, but as he shakily pushes himself upright its clear his cape saved his skin from tearing. Not that his whole side isn’t aching.
Qifrey’s on the ground some distance away. Breath catching, throat tight with pain, he calls out.
“We’re not finished.” He’s shaking again, hand clasping his pen against the dirt. “Damnit, Qifrey, do you hear me? We aren’t done.”
~
He’s so tired.
When the bubble bursts he takes in a huge gulp of air, as if coming back to life, and then Olruggio’s arms are briefly around him, and he thinks distantly that’s fitting isn’t it? And then they hit the ground and Olruggio is gone again.
Did Olruggio take the brunt of the fall? Even now?
Well, it was a noble effort at least. Once they’re thrown apart, they both clatter and roll like discarded things. When Qifrey finally stills he’s laying there with his eye closed, his face in cool grass.
It could almost be peaceful.
Breathe.
He coughs and sputters and gasps.
It’s not peaceful at all actually, it’s miserable and messy. He’s wet and cold and hurting all over. His head throbs behind his eye, stabbing him. His knee hurts. His back hurts. He just lays there and finally opens his eye.
The sunlight is painful too.
Olruggio’s voice comes into focus, always the thing drawing him back to the world.
We aren’t done.
No, he supposes they aren’t.
Slowly, painfully, he pulls himself up to a sitting position, his shoulders rounded, head slumped.
This is where the real fight begins, right? He doesn’t look at Olruggio. He finds himself facing the little atelier in the distance.
“… Are you hurt, Olruggio?” he asks.
Did I hurt you?
What a silly question. Of course he has.
~
Am I hurt?
A honeyed, sickly balm on his heart, that Qifrey still cares to ask.
And yet, there’s something cloying, threatening about it. An assessment, but not only of care. In destroying his escape route, Olruggio had created a wounded animal, grounded and cornered, poised to strike if he ventures too close. He hates to think of his dearest friend this way. But there’s no denying where the advantage falls now - Qifrey only need subdue him and escape; Olruggio can’t even conceive his own ends now.
And he’s wounded too. Moving his arm grinds something in his collar bone, the pain so sudden and nauseating that he can’t bite it all back. Aching in his side seems to bloom across him as he breathes, ragged and laboured. The burnt end of their ribbon has come loose in his palm. He rubs it between his fingers.
What now, Qifrey? Will you run again, or turn your magic against me in earnest?
Under the volume of his cloak, clandestine fingers draw and draw and draw.
“…Yes,” he says. It’s a quiet, wet word. “And I know you are too. Let’s leave it at this. Please.”
He can feel the tears he blinks back sliding into his throat, hear it too. Gently bubbling like a stream on his rocky words. It’s so… feeble. So unconvincing. Qifrey’s never felt so far away, and he can’t even step up to reach him.
“Talk to me. I won’t raise my hand against you if you just.. talk to me.”
~
And just like that, it has happened again. Impossibly. Inevitably.
Just like every other time that Qifrey erased, Olruggio has wound up extending his hand to him.
Once again, he is no match for Olruggio. He never will be. The immensity of this dear person is overwhelming…
His pen is gripped in his hand still, but his quire is wet. He hadn’t planned it that way. He hadn’t planned at all. It was like his body gave up before his mind did.
It occurs to him finally that there was yet another reason he always used his hat.
I can’t fight him.
He doesn’t turn around, just staring down their little atelier, as if seeing it for the first time. Every awkward stone and angle, but all piled up into something exactly right. Home. He thinks he sees the distant face of one of the girls at the broken window, looking out…
“… Do you remember our last adventure together?” he asks. Not for the first time. There are times he even wonders if Olruggio will forget someday. Through tampering or circumstance… “We decided that no matter what happened, whatever the truth was, we would stick together. Because as boys that was all that mattered to us. We promised that our fates would be entwined. But… I’ve lied to you since then. I didn’t tell you the extent of the memories I uncovered in the Tower of Books.”
He’s told him this more than once too. Like some sort of fucked up play of a confession. Just to be taken away again.
This might be the last time he says it. He doesn’t know.
“I know what they did to me at Silstaz. And I know it’s part of something that they’re still working on even now… Something terrible. I think… no. I know. I’m the only one who can stop them.”
“But I didn’t. Instead I went back to you and I lied to you, because I… I wanted… I wanted our promise. You, and this place, and these wonderful girls… That part was never a lie. I just wanted it so badly, even if I’d have to give it up eventually…”
I wanted to live.
“But my time has come already, Oru… I can’t stall any longer.”
~
I’ve heard this before…
It doesn’t come back the same way - but he knows it, can feel it. Of course. What else could it have been but Qifrey’s endless pursuit - whipped into a frenzy by the assault at Romonneau, his injury, of Coco’s arrival in their lives…
When you said that I chose the girls… His pen hovers over his quire. Do you intend to endanger her to meet your goals? Is that why I turn against you?
His grip tightens around the fabric in his fingers. Their promise… I do remember, Qifrey. It had made so much sense then, to offer his friend everything, to have it offered in return. He believes that it had all been real. Has to. Qifrey loved their little home, and he loved it too.
But it’s with a hollow chest that it dawns on him - Qifrey had immediately broken their promise. Kept him in the dark since that day, straining at that twine. Relying on Olruggio’s heart and steady hand to building their home on this… rot.
He wants to reject the thought. Creature of habit as always. But with everything before him like this… the secrets, the lies, the theft of his memories and agency… His nails dig into the ribbon.
Have I been playing your fool all this time Qifrey?
He cares very deeply for Coco. All the girls. The atelier, Karoon, even the Assembly and it’s witches. It’s not for their sake that he sets his pen on the page again.
“Did you ever think about what I wanted?” he asks simply.
Closing the binding glyph takes barely a flick.
~
It’s perhaps the first time he doesn’t expect it. But of course everything is different this time.
His breath hitches painfully the moment he feels the invisible coils of the binding spell wrapping around his torso, gluing his arms to his sides at an angle that stings. His legs connect too, kneeling there, and pull him to the ground with added gravity that make his injured knee creak. He can’t move. He bows there, trapped and hurting and… oh, so horribly hollow.
It seems I underestimated you again, my friend.
The girl has disappeared from the window and… oh no. There they are, in their smoke-colored dresses. Clustered together on the front step.
Watching.
He can’t see their expressions.
He always knew this day would come, with all of its wordless suffering, but he had never expected to be so… exposed. To have to look them all right in their eyes and reveal himself for what he truly is.
To actually see their faces as the last threads of forgiveness vanish.
This hope is just like water huh, he thinks, his mind drifting outside of himself. Too little will kill you… and so will too much.
Even the most exquisite warmth and light can still burn and blind you.
He isn’t sure if he can speak. He doesn’t even know if it’s worth the try.
“… I’m sorry,” he croaks. “If you hand me over… I still can’t give up. Whatever that will mean.”
Whether it means the risk of death or oblivion, his mission isn’t over.
But this… this is.
Can the girls see him from there? Can they see what is happening?
Blindly, stupidly, horribly, he can feel himself smiling. Just on reflex.
Just in case they can make out his face and… and he doesn’t want them to see anything else but a smile for them. An It’ll be ok.
But it’s useless isn’t it? The tight, untrue thing crumbles from his face and he hangs his head.
Oh he has failed so utterly.
~
They could be mirrors of each other, heads hung and knelt in the dirt - only Olruggio makes no effort to smile. That’s it. He doesn’t want it to be it. Maybe if he sat here long enough he’d take root in the earth and never have to face what was next.
What even is next?
He’d never considered a future without Qifrey. Never thought he’d have to.
It takes laborious minutes for him to stand, leaving his pen and quire in the dirt. He could be full of lead, molten and heavy, his steps towards Qifrey are slow and shuffling - he stops behind him to stare at his friend’s back, draped in singed fabric and defeat.
Olruggio spares a glace towards the atelier. He wishes he hadn’t.
Maybe they didn’t see… But for all they knew, Olruggio had just attacked their professor. The guilt of that, whatever they’re feeling, twists in his gut.
“Were you planning on giving them a chance, Qifrey?” His voice is flat. “To leave before you self-destructed? Find someone who could be as kind to them as you had been instead of leaving them with no one? I’m not a professor, Qifrey.”
He doesn’t want to confront how he feels, not aloud, but he has to doesn’t he? His life is tucked away with Qifrey’s, because he’d been stupid enough to take their promise seriously.
“Did you think for a second about any of us? About me? Beyond what you wanted me to do with my life.” His voice starts to wobble and he lets it, because what the fuck. It feels like a luxury to be angry and wounded by this man and just feel it. “How was I meant to feel when you disappeared and I had to live knowing I’d taken you for granted? Was that meant to hurt me less–”
The next words catch in his throat. Would speaking them seal some fate for the man before him… was that out of Olruggio’s hands.
“Are you planning on dying, Qifrey?” His eyes finally flood. “I can’t just go on with my life knowing you weren’t planning to let me hold you through it. Do you understand that?”
~
The pain in Olruggio’s voice is… not something he has heard before. Not like this.
It’s pain and it’s rage, both from loving him. That sinks down through Qifrey’s shoulders, seeps into him slowly… Of course he has thought of these things. Of who he’ll be leaving behind. He has thought of them endlessly. But, if he’s honest with himself… not like this.
He has not thought of their love for him. It was so easy to… neglect. To not fully believe.
That day when he and Olruggio took their vow before challenging the Tower of Books, the day they traded the tassels on their hats… He’s starting to see that his promise was never as complete as Olruggio’s. Where Olruggio was willing to risk everything, Qifrey had tightly withheld one last and vitally important piece this whole time.
He had not accepted Olruggio’s love. Without even realizing it, he had not understood it. He had not allowed that powerful, all-generative love to fully reach him. To save him.
The tears are back, making his view of the atelier swim. The fatigue and the pain he has shouldered alone for so long, the constant knowing and the lies and stepping away from everyone… It sort of melts inside him, turns to nothing but heat and mess, and he’s so sorry.
He hadn’t even realized. How could he not realize? This whole time he had admired the gift of Olruggio’s love so much and yet he never accepted it. He just let Olruggio give and give that love every day and never let it reach him.
He feels it all suddenly, in a great rush.
He is loved. He is loved so much.
And oh, what careless cruelty it was to live all this time not fully believing it, on the level of his guts and his bones. Knowing it was there but not knowing.
He never intended it, but a part of him had honestly believed that he was the sort of person who could disappear from a life. Even from Olruggio’s.
What an immense mistake. What incredible ignorance.
He breathes slowly, trying to steady himself, but the tears keep falling.
“I’m so sorry, Oru…” he says, voice threaded tight. “I’m so sorry that I… didn’t see you. That I…” He shakes his head helplessly, frustrated by his own lack of words. How can he even begin to describe this painful understanding filling his chest to bursting? This painful love? Had he avoided it because it was so painful, to be loved? He finds himself falling on the same words that had come to him in the beginning. “I never meant to hurt you. I wanted to hurt you as little as I could but…” He chokes a bitter, frantic sort of laugh. “But I was scheming without understanding anything, wasn’t I? All this time and I didn’t… I didn’t see you.”
On some level, he didn’t know he could be loved with the same admiration and immensity and need with which he loves Olruggio. Every day he looked at this place and called it his home, all of their home, and it somehow completely slipped his mind that he himself had created it.
Has he really let himself live at all?
“I loved you so selfishly. Somehow I didn’t even know it. Oh, Oru… Oh, Oru, I wanted to give you so much better but I didn’t even know.”
~
Satisfaction. Is it strange to feel such a thing as he watches his friend cry so bitterly? But then, he’d always taken pride in a job well done. Calloused and scarred from the marks of his work, he rests a hand at the nape of Qifrey’s neck - a light touch that disturbs the hair there, rough fingertips against smooth skin.
Qifrey won’t take this memory. He believes that. Whatever loop they were in, with all these lies, had finally twisted apart.
He lets Qifrey speak - that much, Olruggio is owed. It was so hard to stay angry, with this man, knowing how he’s fought for everything he has - never quite sheathing his claws. Except, there had been times… quiet moments where he sat at small tables with their girls, speaking softly and patiently over parchment and ink, and Olruggio had pretended to be sleeping just to listen to his beautiful voice.
If he can give Qifrey more of those moments between… this… Olruggio had never promised to save him, even if his heart yearns to, but just to be there for all of it. And it’s finally settling into Qifrey’s blood that he’d meant it.
Loved me… I believe it, Qifrey, I do. That you didn’t hurt me for the lack of it…
With a sniff, Olruggio wipes his face and blinks until their atelier comes into focus through the blur. He can see the girls speaking frantically; Agete has something white in her hands; he can feel Riche’s burning stare even if he can’t see it fully. It would be harder for them each to accept, Olruggio knows. Kids are fragile, hopeful creatures.
Perhaps the two of them had not grown up as much as they’d thought.
“Qifrey,” he says, shocking himself with the lightness of his tone, “I can see why Agete hasn’t grown of her dramatic tendencies yet, with you as a teacher.”
Then again, he’s put on quite the display himself today… he’s amused by it suddenly. I guess we’re both a little stupid.
There’s a patch of soft grass by Qifrey’s side that Olruggio sits in. He settles with his injured arm resting in his lap and starts unpicking the ribbon from his sleeve. It’s creased where he knotted it. Olruggio smooths the wrinkles between his thumb and forefinger, the rest falling in silky loops between his fingers. It had been a terrible ornament for a fire-witch, hadn’t it? Long, flammable... though the burnt end has cauterised into a smooth, finished edge.
“I don’t think too much got burnt… but it was always quite long wasn’t it? It’ll serve you just as well as always.”
He loops it up neatly, and places it in Qifrey’s lap.
“You can’t help that you’re human, Qifrey. Even if you haven’t accepted that you are one.”
~
Qifrey can only stare down at the coil of ribbon in his lap… Damaged but still more than enough, still familiar, glossy and black. He hadn’t thought it was possible for this gift to become even more precious, but it has. Right in front of him.
He is immeasurably humbled.
His eye slides closed and for a moment they just sit there side by side. The fresh, cool air, the grass beneath them. The cloaks at their shoulders just barely brushing. For the first time in a very long time… It feels the same as it did when they were boys.
Uncomplicated. An anchor into life that is simple and beloved. A single clear light.
I love you and you love me too. How had Qifrey lost sight of this? Something so incredibly important had felt like it must be heavy, but it never was. Or maybe it was more like… weight didn’t have to mean severity. It could also just be what keeps your feet on the ground, so simply and so unwaveringly, day to day. So… lightly.
The binding spell gradually begins to fade. Qifrey can move his fingers. Then he finally pulls his legs out into a more comfortable position with a long sigh.
He has no desire to run, or to move very far at all at the moment. He is bound by something stronger, and kinder.
Instead his hands cup under the tassel in his lap, thumb stroking it lightly, in a way he has often touched this ribbon, when no one was around and he was simply struck again by it, by its mundane loveliness. Emotion crests in his chest again, closes his throat, and he suddenly encloses the ribbon tightly in both hands, still warm from Olruggio’s touch, and brings it to his lips, kisses the fist gently.
“Thank you…” he says.
He slumps more against his friend’s side, his hands with the ribbon coming to press against his own chest, as if to subconsciously try to contain his own heart.
How can I possibly thank you enough…?
Perhaps I can start by just living for you.
He watches as the girls start to shift over on the front step. Coco is the one who finally starts walking in their direction, slowly, and like a dam breaking the others flow with her. These brave, intelligent girls… He realizes that Agete is holding his hat, the broken glyph perfectly visible and yet she still holds it with a sort of awkward reverence…
“It’s the same as ever, isn’t it?” Qifrey says, finally coming to match Olruggio’s lightness. He smiles again, but there is a ghost of truth in this one, behind the tiredness. Real warmth. “You always beat me. I don’t think I’ll ever be a match for you, because I don’t think I’m able to love you any less.”
He lets his head fall onto Olruggio’s good shoulder. He’s already fretting internally about the way Olruggio is holding his other arm but… there’s such a tender, beautiful mundanity to that worry. Sliding into place, right where it belongs.
“All of you…” he says. “You’re the most powerful people I know. What’s a poor professor to do other than want to spoil you?”
~
His heart squeezes at Qifrey’s gratitude. Did he understand it now? The weight Olruggio had given to their promise? Maybe he was starting to. He huffs.
“You do spoil us well enough, I think.” In service of nothing at all, with all his daily kindness… yes, that was Qifrey through and through. It’s untarnished by all of this. An anchor left for both of them.
Olruggio manages a small smile, but it fades quickly. It’s not a lack of content, exactly. Qifrey is a firm, warm weight against his shoulder, one that feels more real than it has in years, Olruggio’s efforts finally yielding some relief for the man.
Maybe that’s it. ‘Finally’. The worst of the weight between them has lifted, but Olruggio can still feel the remnants of it in his chest. He’s tired. His body is pulsing with fresh pain. And whatever reserves he’d been stocking in service of this unknown rift were swirling around him without purpose now - such an aimless fog of them.
It feels a little like grief.
His face tightens, and he looks out to the girls picking their way over to them in silence. Same as ever… I’m not so sure, old friend.
“Qifrey…,” he murmurs, putting his hand on the man’s back. Steady. “I’m going to need some time with this. All of it.” Not just the mending between them, but whatever comes next. It hasn’t passed him by that Qifrey hadn’t answered him - Are you planning on dying?
He’s not sure he wants an answer to that. It’s easy to see why Qifrey hadn’t wanted to be questioned in the first place… easy couldn’t last in times like these, though. It agonised you… how could you ever have thought I’d want that.
“For now… just promise me your plans won’t involve the girls. Beyond warning them. I can be content with that until I figure out what I need.” A shift in his body jars his shoulder, and the wince brings a dry smile to his face. “Ah, the first thing is medical attention, I think. Someone will need to look at your leg too.”
~
“Yes… I understand.” The unspoken sits heavily with them. As much as they can communicate with each other in words, there will perhaps always be parts they can never fully express after so many years. Especially now. Qifrey has had the advantage of years of knowing these horrible secrets… Olruggio has only had moments.
They perhaps don’t have a lot of time but somehow, miraculously, they do still have a little of it.
The girls are cresting a hill not far from them now. None of them have their pens or quires out. That breaks his heart a little. The inherent trust in that, trust he isn’t quite sure he deserves just now.
“There’s more I’ll need to tell you,” he says, quietly, his head on Olruggio’s shoulder not far from his ear. “About Coco especially. But not right now. Suffice to say… I would protect these girls sooner than I would protect the whole world of the Pointed Hats.”
It’s the truth. It feels so… strange.
The pain isn’t gone but perhaps the relief has overloaded his system. All he can really think is that the truth should hurt more than this, and yet here they are.
He lifts his head as the girls finally arrive, and he can see their faces finally, their various reactions. Coco’s expression is perhaps the most… knowing. Qifrey wishes it wasn’t. Agete’s is closed off, the hat held firmly in her hands. Riche’s eyes land on Olruggio.
Tetia looks horrified.
“Professor Qifrey! Professor Oru! You’re hurt!”
They are, is the thing. Why does he want to laugh?
He turns to Olruggio now, a hand ghosting just above his injured arm, trailing his sleeve up to his shoulder.
Oh. The way he’s holding it looks bad. Olruggio…
“We’ll be alright,” Quifrey says, swallowing the lump in his throat. “Um…”
He can feel them all staring at him. This is… tricky.
But they are precious too. And they have been injured too.
“I think I have a lot to explain to you, girls,” he says quietly, his eye meeting Olruggio’s briefly before returning to his students. He doesn’t smile. His face isn’t grave but… It isn’t happy either. It’s an adult trying to be honest with the children in his care, to let them see him, an awkward and unfamiliar dynamic. “But first it looks like Olruggio and I will need to get ourselves to a doctor… What do you say, Oru?”
~
Coco… Yes, Olruggio has plenty of questions about her specifically. For now, he has to bite his tongue as the girls draw within earshot - but it’s no longer an opportunity missed. And Qifrey’s vow is just as reassuring as the weight of his body.
Isn’t that strange? We’ve somehow felt the same this whole time, despite everything.
He lets Qifrey take the lead with the girls - they’re his students after all… Riche is looking to him, though. He shoots her a grimace and a thumbs-up. Her nose scrunches up, but she stops clinging to her dress so fretfully.
Unpicking things with the girls might be harder than with Qifrey. The man himself is floundering a little under their gaze and Olruggio can hardly blame him. It’s a hard line to walk. They’re only children, but they’re owed honesty. Their injuries, the kitchen, the hat Agete holds - unexplained they’re bound to cause more stress.
But fuck, his arm is really starting to hurt.
“I’d say the same.” His new grimace is more exaggerated, sucking in air through his teeth. And immediately feels bad about it. Especially as he sees Agete’s eyes narrow at him.
Always the clever one, huh.
“For now…” Oh, there’s no good way to explain in brief. “…maybe one of you could find my hat for me?”
~
Coco and Tetia leap on the opportunity to help, and their good humor is so… strong. Quifrey can see in both of them that it’s a choice they make then, to lighten the air for everyone else. He’s so very grateful for them. For all of them. Riche silently follows, so immediately that her eagerness to offer any small relief isn’t a secret either. The girls all hurry out into the field, holding up their dresses in their small hands, attention on the ground as if searching for four leafed clover.
Agete takes a moment. She steps forward and wordlessly hands Quifrey his hat, looking down and away.
His heart tightens.
“Thank you,” he says gently, accepting it from her.
And she goes to search with the others.
They find Olruggio’s hat before long. But that moment, sitting beside Olruggio and watching their students wandering the grass with their heads bowed… Quifrey will cherish this moment so much. Like all of the others.
END OF THREAD.