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It must have been late morning or noon by the time Qifrey finally stepped out of his room, blanket still wrapped around his shoulders.
Beldaruit had tried to rouse him earlier in the day, and he hadn't meant to make the witch worried, but Qifrey had had no idea how to explain the way he could not keep his eye open for more than a few moments, that his lead filled limbs weren't willing to move at all.
He couldn't explain this, and Beldaruit went through every concession and consolation he could think of before he had to finally give up on his attempt.
He hadn't asked Beldaruit to do so. He hadn't asked Beldaruit to wake him in the mornings, to be concerned about his health, to leave him alone and let him skip lessons and rest when he felt under the weather. He hadn't asked Beldaruit to leave his breakfast by his door today, or to knock on his door and inform him when he had needed to head out for something.
Beldaruit had no need to do any of it, his only job was to teach magic. But for some reason, he did so anyway. There was a lot Qifrey didn't get about this new Professor of his.
Qifrey carried the empty tray down to the hall with him. He inspected the base of the teacup as he walked, and the outer edges of the groove of the saucer, the magic engraved on them.
‘Some magic is good,’ he reminded himself, staring at the unenclosed glyph on the saucer in his hand. There was magic that robbed people of their eyes and their memories, but magic that kept people's tea warm also existed. Some magic was good.
Something moved in the corner of his sight as he walked.
He was supposed to be alone in the house-
The saucer slipped out of his hand as he whirled around in surprise.
“Ah…”
The saucer fell on the floor and crashed to pieces. Qifrey held the tray tighter as he stepped back, not wanting to break anything else.
“Are you alright?” Beldaruit asked as he rushed over to his side. “Don't move from where you are now, I'll clean this up.” He scribbled a simple spell in his book. “You aren't hurt, are you?”
Qifrey mutely shook his head, watching Beldaruit throw away the shards. “I thought you were supposed to be out,” he asked, as he handed the tray over to waiting hands. Unless? He stared at the figure closely. “Are you… a smoke sculpture?” he asked, hesitant about his observation.
“Indeed,” Beldaruit, or rather, his likeness declared with a proud smile.
“I didn't like the idea of leaving you alone, when you seemed unwell in the morning. So I left the sculpture behind to watch over you. Though,” he pointed at the disposed shards, looking mildly guilty, “it seems like I've caused a rather contrary effect. Did my presence startle you?”
“S’alright.” Qifrey mumbled. Yes, he had dropped the saucer because of Beldaruit's sudden appearance, but that wasn't really the witch's fault. “When are you actually coming back?” He asked instead.
“Soon,” Beldaruit replied. “My business is done, so- ” He paused all of a sudden, considering something, fingers pressed together.
“Actually, there is a place I feel the urge to stop by. If you would be willing to join me,” he offered, trying not to sound too expectant.
Qifrey’s first instinct was to say no, it always was, but-
I don't want it to always stay that way…
Qifrey quietly considered it. “Will there- are there a lot of people there?” he asked, pulling the blanket closer around himself.
“No. There are rarely any people there. In fact, there shouldn't be anyone around this time. What do you think?”
Qifrey worried his lip as he thought of it. “No one?” he asked.
“No one,” Beldaruit reassured him again.
Well, he thought. How badly could it possibly go?
Qifrey walked through the arching hallway Beldaruit's smoke sculpture had pointed him to. Whatever this place that Beldaruit was so fond of was, he had no idea. The doorknob he had turned was exquisitely carved with the pattern of a tree, but he knew not the meaning behind it.
And neither did it matter, for trees don't grow on seafloors. And this place was definitely still underwater, for he could hear the sea currents crashing against the barrier again, and sorely missed his blanket to at least muffle the intensity of the noise.
He treated the path made of paved stone floors and walls until he saw Beldaruit, the real one, this time.
“Good afternoon,” Beldaruit greeted with a smile, before it slipped away into concern. “Did you sleep poorly again?”
Qifrey winced, the sound of waves reaching his ears yet again. “Not more than usual.”
Beldaruit didn't respond as he took in the dejected resignation in Qifrey's reply.
“Thank you for joining me today,” he said instead, lacing his fingers together. “It makes me unbearably happy to see you come out here. I understand that you rather prefer staying in the atelier.”
That was true, Qifrey supposed. He didn't feel safe in the atelier, not exactly, he could never feel safe underwater. But the place had grown to be a comfort.
He shrugged.
“But this much I assure you: Never has this place failed to make me feel more at peace.”
“What is this place anyways?”
“Argentgard.” Beldaruit announced, his voice carrying the weight of some great importance.
Qifrey stared at Beldaruit impassively. As if the name meant anything to him.
“It's easier to see with your own eye, rather than any explanation that would never catch the beauty of this place.” He pointed to an arch, through which silvery beams of light slipped in. “See, we are already here.”
“If I recall correctly,” Beldaruit said as they crossed the threshold, revealing the sight before them as they stepped into sandy soil, “we covered silverwoods during the basic lessons on magic. But I believe this will be your first time seeing one?”
Qifrey gasped.
Numerous trees, their majestic barks silvery white, stretching tall and proud, thousands of silvery leaves their regal crowns, casting a silver glow to the whole place.
Beldaruit was right. A noble, majestic beauty that couldn't be put into words.
And oh, were they still underwater? They were, he knew that - the waves. He could still hear the waves. And yet, the rustling of a hundred silver leaves overcame the sound of water.
Argentgard, where the grove of silverwoods grew.
“It's-” Qifrey started, but found that he knew not enough words to describe his feelings, his heart a stranger to such joys. “It's…”
“Majestic, aren't they?” Beldaruit asked.
Qifrey nodded, fervently. “Magical,” he mumbled.
“One could say that they are magic itself,” Beldaruit agreed. “For they are its very source.”
Suddenly, Qifrey felt a pull, deep from the very pits of his stomach, an urge to be closer to the trees. Just seeing them wasn't enough, anymore.
“Can we… Can we go any closer to them?” he asked, breathless.
“Of course we can,” Beldaruit said, but the path to the closest copse of trees was cut off by a shallow canal filled with water.
Of course.
Qifrey froze in his tracks.
But Beldaruit placed a hand on his back. “You won't have to do much as touch the water,” he assured. “That's what magic is for.”
His magic pulled up a rather impressive bridge of sand, and he showed the glyph for Qifrey to inspect.
“Is this alright?” Were people really allowed to erect random bridges? Was he allowed? Qifrey felt a sudden rush of panic coursing through his body - If it was already against the rules, and his existence in this place was also against the rules, then-
“There is a main bridge,” Beldaruit sheepishly admitted, “but, well, the path is rather winding. But the extra bridges can be collapsed anytime, so anyone can build them.”
“If anyone says anything,” he added with a wink, rather extravagant in his gesture, “just push the blame on me.”
Qifrey sighed wearily at the witch's antics. (That they eased some of his nerves, he would never admit to his professor.)
But it was impossible to remain exasperated at him, not when he was in such vicinity of the silverwoods.
“Can I?” Qifrey asked as they stood at the trees' base amongst the dense roots, impatient, hand outstretched, reaching out to the vast trunk of the nearest tree, the urge impossible to suppress, no longer ignorable.
“Of course,” the professor assured, and Qifrey pressed his palm against the smooth, silvery bark.
He gasped, tried to give voice to the feeling bubbling in his heart, found that he didn't know enough words to describe it.
“Magnificent, isn't it?” Beldaruit offered, settling his sealchair down beside Qifrey. Qifrey nodded, accepting the word, storing it into his memory.
But there was yet another sensation rising within him, beneath the rustling of this silvery foliage, tickling his chest with what he could only call hope.
Recollection. Something about this place, no, the silverwood trees themselves brushed against his mind, stirring the broken, scattered memories from before in a way never experienced before.
They said it was incredibly rare for erased memories to return, that it was nigh impossible. They said to not hold any expectations in this regard, to not have any hopes.
But what could those like him do, if not cling to the faintest of hopes with all their strength?
“Beldaruit,” he whispered, not daring to raise his voice, afraid to voice his hope, afraid that it would be lost the moment it left his tongue.
“The silverwoods- I remember! I don't know where but I- I remember them-”
But Beldaruit's face didn't light with joy, nor with hope. Instead, a dark cloud passed over his expression, and he let out a pained, languishing sigh, unknowingly trampling over the fragile hope Qifrey had sheltered in his chest, a hope he hadn't even been aware of.
“I should have known,” Beldaruit lamented, “and I must admit that I had wished you wouldn't hold the memory, that this wouldn't draw an association with those unnecessarily cruel times, but I suppose that it was a foolish thought.”
“What are you talking about?”
Beldaruit, hesitant to reply, remained silent at length before he finally spoke.
“Thristas,” he admitted at last, “is a forest of silverwoods. I suppose you can recall-”
Instantly, Qifrey's hand recoiled away from the silverwood as if burned, repulsed by the memory, by the tree, by this very place.
“You-” he accused, glaring viciously at Beldaruit in betrayal. Beldaruit cringed at his displeasure, holding his hands up in defeat.
“Wait,” he pleaded, “will you let me explain?”
No, Qifrey didn't want to wait, or to listen to any half baked explanations. He wanted out of this place. In fact, he would have run off, if not for the water blocking his way, a threshold he couldn't cross, for the bridge they had walked over had been collapsed by Beldaruit afterwards, at Qifrey's own foolish insistence.
“Please?” Beldaruit insisted.
“Fine,” Qifrey relented, rather bitterly.
“If you must know,” Beldaruit said, rather ruefully, and Qifrey was almost ready to beg him to get to the point, “won't you like to sit down?”
“No.”
“If you say so,” Beldaruit pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing at the hostility in his apprentice's tone. “Regardless, listen:
'In days long gone, far before the Day of Conspiracy, there grew a forest full of silverwoods - Why, back then, it would have resembled this place!
The only misfortune of the forest, one could say, was that the dark witch Thristas happened upon it. Whence the witch came from, and what became of him after, and what his reasons were has all been lost to the whims of time. Some say he desired to command great forces that would know not of defeat, some say he was a lover driven mad, misled by grief, and his affection for a love long gone, but I say- the reason matters not! For what Thristas sought was an unforgivable sin- indeed, he tried to bring the dead back to life. A grave sin against the very rules of nature.
And so began his experiments, twisted beyond our imaginations. Whether he succeeded or not, we may never know. The only thing known for sure is that whatever the dark magics he wrought on the place were, they left unfading scars on the land, turning the forest forever dark and encasing it in a foul miasma.'
And so the tale ends.”
“I was afraid it was too soon for you,” Beldaruit confessed, taking in Qifrey's pale visage. “Even if you must learn it one day. I'm afraid that I must teach you, all the calamities and cruelties magic has wrought on this world in the past. You, of all people, must know of it, terrifying as it sounds. But not this soon.”
His words barely reached Qifrey's ringing ears. His legs shook, his knuckles were white against the hem of his cloak. There was magic that tried to bring back the dead. Yes there might be magic that kept teas warm and magic that raised bridges across water, but magic stole eyes and memories and ruined silverwoods and turned forests foul like that place.
“But please remember, that's not all what magic can be,” Beldaruit pleaded. “The woods of Thristas might have been irreversibly corrupted, but Argentgard is different. I beseech you, look around this place before you draw any conclusions, and tell me if you find it evil or foul.”
Qifrey sharply breathed in. No, it was impossible to think of this place as foul. His earlier impression of Argentgard had remained unchanged. It was a beautiful place, untouched by any ills wrought by the likes of Brimhats. He couldn't help but shake his head.
Beldaruit extended a hand before him, expecting, waiting. And hadn't Qifrey taken it before, when much more uncertainty clouded every part of his small world? So he took it again, reclaiming his seat before the silverwood.
He felt his breath align with the rustling of the majestic leaves, his heart beating with a matching rhythm. Beldaruit shifted, placing a hand on the trunk, right next to Qifrey's, and he almost felt that happen as well. Miraculous as it was, he found the constant discomfort of being surrounded by water dimming.
“Thank you,” Qifrey whispered gratefully, just loud enough for his professor to listen. “For bringing me here.”
“Anytime,” Beldaruit replied joyfully, a wide smile splitting on his face.
And even below the sea, Argentgard would become a place where Qifrey could almost find peace, an anchor to a restless soul.
(Later on this would become a treasured memory both witches kept close to their hearts, one of simpler joys and simpler times from days long gone by.)