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The stars whisper their names in Olruggio’s ear at the same rhythm and volume that Qifrey sobs.
Startled, Olruggio chokes on an inhale as his eyes dart open. He’s met with the sight of a glowing sky, greens and blues bleed into the dyed pitches of obsidian. The celestials call to him, tempt him, beg him to notice them as they pull heaving breaths from his chest.
“Oru?”
The Earth sucks him back down at the sound of that voice. Olruggio cranes his head back, only now noticing how it’s elevated and perched on Qifrey’s lap. It takes several blinks before Qifrey fully comes into his line of focus, and even then the night is so dark that he can only really make out the most prominent features of his face. The ends of his hair curl as if cradling constellations; it bathes his outline in an ethereal luminosity.
Olruggio blinks several times more to ward off the sleepiness. His voice sounds like he’s swallowed rocks when he answers, “Yeah? Sorry, ‘m awake now…what were we discussing?”
A slender hand traces along the stubble of his jaw and he hears Qifrey sniff. “Nothing of importance.”
He doesn’t believe that for a single second. Not with the way Qifrey’s sentence flows so smoothly in such a wrecked tone. It’s practiced. It’s well-known. It’s familiar enough that he doesn’t put much effort into it.
Olruggio grunts, a slight throb interrupting his train of thought. Qifrey’s thumb smoothes over Olruggio’s brow in a comforting gesture. “Does it hurt?” he whispers.
“Could be worse,” Olruggio attempts to brush it off. He winces as his head continues to pound. “Could’ve actually hit my head on a rock or something…did I? Or did I have this when I fell asleep? I can’t—”
Qifrey shushes him and moves to massage his temples. “No, you didn’t.”
Olruggio waits for an elaboration that never comes. Eventually, trying to distinguish Qifrey’s features in the dark proves to be too much for his headache and he shuts his eyes. “Have you been with me this whole time?”
There’s a slight stutter in Qifrey’s actions, but he continues before Olruggio has the chance to open his eyes again to check on him. “I could never leave you. Especially not when…I couldn’t very well leave our Watchful Eye out to sleep in the dirt, now could I?”
Olruggio hums. This isn’t the first time he’s fallen asleep like this. Though, normally even though Qfirey will stay with him, his skin will never meet Olruggio’s. Their conversation must’ve been particularly intense this time around, extra important and yet…damnit. He’d fallen asleep again. Perhaps he should start napping before coming out to stare at the night sky.
Olruggio desperately grasps at his bearings through the thick fog in his mind. He was about to ask something, what was it? When he’d woken up, he felt the briefest flash of…agony? It’s a rather intense emotion but considering how Qifrey sounded to be—oh of course!
“Were you crying?” Olruggio asks suddenly.
Once again, there’s a pause so scarce that it can hardly be called such. However, Olruggio has been with Qifrey for years and knows every twitch of Qifrey’s muscle as if it were his own body. “You know me better than anyone else.”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“I’m not,” Qifrey insists softly. “I’m simply making an observation. Here I thought I’d hidden it well…”
Olruggio reaches, blindly, up and up and up to return the touch in any way he can. His knuckles find, as if magnetized, Qifrey’s chin and a fleeting kiss is placed there. His head throbs once more. “Tell me.”
It’s no secret that Qifrey cries—more than Olruggio would like. However, if, for whatever reason, it was Olruggio who made him like that and he couldn’t even remember it…the bile in Olruggio’s stomach curdles at the thought.
He’d sworn long ago that he’d protect Qifrey and all his students with everything Olruggio had. Long hours in the shop, back bent at awkward angles in order to keep himself awake, all of it worth their safety. If any of them so much as asked, he’d do his best to net the nearest falling stars and reel them down for them.
Any harm that comes to them is Olruggio’s responsibility. To be the one causing that harm…Olruggio cannot stand the thought of it.
“Please don’t concern yourself over it, old friend,” Qifrey attempts to soothe him. Which isn’t right. Olruggio should be soothing Qifrey. But Olruggio supposes he’s failed in some regard. Qifrey continues, further splintering Olruggio’s heart, “You already worry so much…won’t you let me worry for you now, hm? Are you feeling any better?”
In truth, no. The headache hasn’t grown thanks to Qifrey’s careful hands rubbing tender spots on his temples with pinpoint accuracy. He can’t let Qifrey worry about him while he’s acting; especially not when he’s acting so strange. “Mm. ‘S better thanks to you.”
“Anything for you.” And Olruggio knows that he means it.
They don’t say much for a while. Olruggio breathes deeply, wills the pain in his head to dull into an annoying and persistent pressure—it’s manageable that way. Under Qifrey’s fingers, Olruggio slowly begins to slump, somehow more exhausted than he had been before his nap.
“I think I’ve spotted a new star,” Qifrey whispers after an entire clock mark passes.
Olruggio cracks open an eye to see Qifrey’s head tilted towards the sky. Even with the sharp shadows created by the slight light they have, Olruggio can follow Qifrey’s line of sight to lock onto a twinkling light he hadn’t previously seen. Surprising considering how bright it is.
Olruggio hums and diverts his full attention to that spot. “Seems like it. Probably part of a, um…quadryphon constellation. It’s got all sorts of wings coming off of it.”
Qifrey’s laugh is brittle at the edges but he plays along anyway. “No, no, it’s certainly a myrphon. See, look. If you connect it there—” Qifrey leans in so he can accurately point from Olruggio’s perspective, “—and there, those could be the ears instead of wings.”
“Could just be a fork instead.”
That earns a real laugh from Qifrey and Olruggio’s chest swells twice its size. “Unlikely it would be so mundane.”
“There’s millions of stars out there,” Olruggio counters, “some are bound to be more boring than others, Qifrey.”
Qifrey, on the other hand, adamantly shakes his head. “Not this one. I can tell that it’s special.”
He says it like there’s a deeper meaning, but Olruggio cannot pick up what it means and ignores it. “There you go picking up strays again.”
“I’m quite good at it, thank you,” Qifrey quips.
“Wasn’t a compliment—”
“Oh!” Qifrey interrupts him. “I know exactly what it is. It’s a pointed cap!”
Olruggio squints at the star for several seconds. “...and you’re certain it’s not a fork?”
The fingers that had been massaging at his left temple move to playfully pinch Olruggio’s nose. “Very certain. In fact, I think it should be recorded so everyone who reads the stars from now on will know. Do you happen to have a pen and paper? I could go get some if not.”
No matter how perky their conversation had gotten, Olruggio knows that it’s mostly a front to steer him away from whatever had been bothering Qifrey. He knows this very well and yet he still went along with it. He also knows what Qifrey’s excuses to leave sound like. It doesn’t sit well with Olruggio at all.
He indulges anyway, because he is too weak to deny him a moment to himself. “No need. My tower is right over there, and I have plenty of empty journals in need of filling. I got it.”
“No you don’t—you really shouldn’t…your headache, Olly—” Qifrey tries his best to hold him in his reclined position but Olruggio’s mind is made up.
“Nonsense. ‘M capable…take care while I’m gone. I’ll return in a moment.”
Olruggio doesn’t wait for an answer, staggers to his feet and walks with unsteady legs all the way to his workshop. It’s a trip that could potentially take only a few clock ticks with his sylph shoes. However, he’ll let Qifrey have his time to brood properly, and then they might actually have a productive conversation afterwards.
He doesn’t think much when he enters his workshop. A base instinct carries him to the desk nearest to the door and scoops up an empty journal along with a pen, ink, and a snugstone (the night had chilled and he knows Qifrey will try to leech as much warmth from him as he can). Olruggio attaches the pen and ink to his belt and begins to walk back, book in hand.
Just before he reaches the door though, Olruggio notices a dog-eared corner to one of the pages. Huh. He must’ve grabbed a drafting book by accident. Curious, he opens the book and raises an eyebrow at its contents.
Mostly it consists of jumbled words and nonsense sketches—none of which Olruggio can recall writing. A number 11 appears after he lifts the folded corner. The words are scrawled at awkward angles and varying sizes. They read: angry, crying failure, naps, new magic?, save, helpless helpless helpless, tired very sleepy.
Then there’s a large unfinished glyph, so unsteady that it could’ve been mistaken for a novice’s drawing if the glyph itself weren’t so complex. A circle and dot in the middle with five arms branching from it, three prongs sticking from them and arrows on either side pointing towards the bottom. Olruggio doesn’t recognize this variation but there’s no doubt that it’s a memory spell. But why was it here…?
Olruggio grimaces as something pulses in his skull and he presses a heel of his palm to a closed eye. Hm. Something is not right. No, further than that, something is very wrong. Olruggio doesn’t know how to put the pieces together. It could simply be some madness he’d scribbled down after a particularly rough dream. But what if…
A stabbing pain, much worse than anything he’s experienced tonight, blooms from the center of his head outward. Olruggio doubles over with a hiss, slamming the book shut. Shit. It doesn’t take long to settle but Olruggio’s breath is still caught in his throat by the time it goes.
What the hell?!
He quickly scans through the previous pages, finding a similar format on them all, though some more filled out than others. The most recent one, page 12, only contains a list of names—ones he assumes that could be the inventor of the altered memory glyph and possibly people who would… use it on him.
Obvious names make an appearance, Beldaruit, a couple of the Knights of Moralis, a Brimhat. Certain names are crossed out, some of which striked intensely before they’re even completed. ‘Alair’ and ‘Heiha’ are the most notable of these. The last on this list is merely a mess of squiggly lines, all dark and angry and so firm that the ink bleeds out of line.
Olruggio presses his lips together and, against his own will, lifts his gaze to the open door where he can see the silhouette of his best and oldest friend in the distance. He’s curled up, head to his knees, like a child who can’t think of anything else to do but cry.
A thought flits through his mind that he should destroy the journal, allow his flames to consume any conspiracies that could turn him against the person that he trusts most in this world. But even as he tries to resolve himself to do so, he cannot.
An overwhelming grief, an agony he’d felt only the remnants of earlier that night, seizes his lungs. He shakily exhales and before he can think too much of it, he swipes the pen and ink from his waist and jots down on the following page.
Agony, anguish, grief, fear
Qi
He scratches through it and jots a quick 13 in the corner before slamming the journal closed, not even allowing the ink to dry. Olruggio shoves it into a drawer. He takes it back out and slams it in the middle of the desk. He pushes it onto the edge and places several loose papers over it.
Heart pounding, he snatches a loosely bound book that he’s certain is empty and walks back outdoors.
His step falters for a moment once the grass is beneath him again and he shudders. Blinking several times, Olruggio stares out in the distance. Qifrey’s form becomes diluted, unfocused, and Olruggio trails further up. His face is parallel with the sky and he searches it, looks for an answer spelled out, reaches for it.
The galaxies stretch far out of his grasp, but somehow, when he’s here, he feels like his fingertips could graze the heavens if he tried hard enough.
He wonders how far away they truly are.