Chapter Text
“All I have to say is… um… Just go easy on me, okay?”
—Is what he had said right before the seal took effect. The slip of paper was weightless between his pointer and thumb, but carried with it the promise of lifelong pain for his dearest friend, pain that would live permanently in a life longer than it would have been.
It would save Qifrey, but Olruggio was going to forget everything.
What they found in the tower. Qifrey’s condition. The pyreball that had almost fizzled out, made with shaky but determined hands that had nearly gotten splinters from the wooden oars as he rushed to the tower, coming back with salvation and damnation in equal measures.
Maybe the ink was thinner than Olruggio was used to because of the tears-to-ink ratio, or the spell was unfamiliar, just something he glimpsed and memorised. The rush of an answer made his stomach churn with anticipation and trepidation. It must have blurred his memories of the spell. Or maybe some components hadn’t been rendered properly on the page.
There had to have been something, anything that he had messed up, because upon waking, Olruggio still remembered.
He would have confessed right then and there, shooting up from the makeshift bed of their robes to try again, but he hesitated.
Qifrey was there, sitting by the riverbank. Alive, whole, hale, and decidedly not a tree. He stared at Olruggio’s tasselled cap like it was the only memory left of a past loved one. The grip had tightened as Olruggio grunted, stretching and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
Through his fingers, he could see Qifrey straighten at his waking, then slump with pain and grief. Like something more than just Olruggio’s memories had been lost. The ribbon, a black stark against the white-grey cap, wrapped around Qifrey’s fist a few times before he let it fall away. Olruggio knew his friend was stressed. Nervous. It had the ribbon’s original owner determined to keep the lie intact. If not for Qifrey’s sake, then his own.
It’s really embarrassing to have given such a speech only for the spell to not work!
And part of Olruggio was relieved as well. The idea of completely forgetting about such an important moment then having to— relive it, he assumes, like an endless cycle of pain, scares him. He didn’t feel it in the moment, because Qifrey was going to die and Olruggio was the only one who could help, but he was well and truly terrified. Because, as gruesome as it was, that happening to Qifrey meant that he felt safe around Olruggio.
On a shore slightly damp from seawater, with his hands and arms feeling like jelly from rowing, laughing in relief with the only friend he trusted to go on the journey with him, Qifrey felt safe. The memoryless Olruggio wouldn’t have known what he lost. And there’s no way he would’ve gone on the same journey as Qifrey to get the moment back, because Qifrey would’ve hid the fact from him.
But now, after a failed attempt that worked anyway, Olruggio could truly be his partner in pain, and it wouldn’t be one-sided. Or, well, it would be, because there’s no way he’s telling Qifrey that he still remembers, because the other boy would probably laugh at him and turn into a tree again — But Qifrey wouldn’t have to shoulder his burden alone. Olruggio can be there with him, smothering him in all the silent ways Qifrey never noticed.
It’s just a prolonged bad day for Qifrey, Olruggio reasons. Just like on the days when his good eye aches too badly to do anything, and he’s stuck bed-bound. When he forgets he exists and Olruggio has to get him to eat and sleep instead of pouring over textbooks for hours on end. When he drifts off in the middle of conversations because people are talking, and his sick sense of curiosity can’t help but listen in, but the words hurt more than they should. When he isolates. When he shuts off. It’ll be just like days he doesn’t remember what I look like, or he forgets my name.
A bad day to a bad week, to a bad year, to a bad life.
Guilt is a powerful thing. It will hang over Qifrey’s head like a guillotine. And if axes ever swing again, it’ll be that same guilt that separates him and a forest. Olruggio himself will harbor that same guilt, splattered with the bittersweet affection that cruelty is the only thing Olruggio could do to keep him alive. He’ll never apologise for keeping his best friend alive. Never.
“Urgh, what the… Did I fall asleep?” Olruggio asks out loud, pretending not to stare at the ears that twitch upon hearing his voice. As if Qifrey was expecting something more weighed down by secrets. Olruggio was the one who taught Qifrey how to lie about his smile, of course he knows how to cover things up with his own. “Oh, hey, Qifrey! Didn’t know you came back from the tower already!”
Qifrey doesn’t respond. Olruggio keeps talking, because oblivious yapping is everything he must have been to Qifrey at the beginning of their friendship, and maybe going back to their roots will do him some good.
He shrugs on his robe. “So, how’d it go?” It’s still warm with his body heat. Qifrey must have put it over him after he collapsed. “The Librarian’s Trial, I mean.” Olruggio knows what Qifrey did, his white-haired friend told him everything once he got back. “Were you able to get inside?” Olruggio was able to get inside only because Qifrey had challenged them before him. “Did you find anything useful?” Olruggio certainly did.
Qifrey turns his head. “Olly…”
Right there, Olruggio catches a glimpse of it. The beginnings of exhaustion creeping its way under Qifrey’s skin. Pale lips inhale, exhale, taking a deep breath.
Good. Even while pained, Qifrey is willing to hold their shared lie.
“Nope,” he says, smiling with his eye closed. “Nothing about my past, anyway.”
It’s only fitting that the first lie he tells comes with a smile to boot. Olruggio wants to smile back, knowing that they’d both be fake.
“I’m sorry,” Qifrey continues, and Olruggio’s breath hitches. “After everything you’ve done for me, I feel bad for coming back empty-handed…”
An admission of guilt that Olruggio shouldn’t know the meaning behind. But he does, and there’s no other answer he could ever give to Qifrey.
“Nothing to apologise for, bud!” Olruggio is at Qifrey’s side, slapping his back like he told the most hilarious joke. That’s what Olruggio would have done, and that’s what he does now. “Why’re you so stiff? You’re talking to me like I’m your master!”
The idea that Master Beldaruit makes Qifrey feel the same puts an ugly feeling in his stomach, but there’s nothing Olruggio can do now but feign ignorance and get Qifrey living their shared dreams as fast as possible.
The feeling of helplessness makes Olruggio relent a little. Qifrey deserves something more than what he’s done, but obvious statements with implications is the most risk Olruggio’s willing to go for.
“The tower’s kind of weird,” he hums. “The only books it lets you find and leave with are the ones your heart is looking for.”
I truly wanted to save you, Qifrey. Even if it came at the cost of my own memories. Let’s be honest — what’ll losing a few memories do to me? I’ll still be my best charming self. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give to keep you alive and well.
It’s a truth only a true friend could tell. Olruggio doesn’t think he’ll ever work up the courage to say it out loud.