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The letter came not through person, but on the letter-writing contraption. Qifrey, who would always race to check on incoming letters much like a cat would curl up on the windowsill and watch the postman in a patch of sunlight, walked leisurely over to the contraption and waited for it to stop clicking.
And then he picked up the letter.
And then he read two lines.
And then his knees crumbled beneath him and he had to hold the table to keep him upright, only his grip was too strong and the entire table flipped.
The apprentices were naturally alarmed, but he reassured them in a voice too calm to be his own that it was just from sitting down for so long and that he really needed to grab something from his room.
Qifrey made it two steps into said room before his legs folded under him and the most miserable howl he’d ever heard escaped from his mouth. The letter was crumpled in his fist, and he was cradling his head with his knees, and the arm with the paper was tucked just in front of his head, and he was aware he was making himself the most compact human ball ever, but he couldn’t stop the tears from coming and wetting his knees and skirt.
We regret to inform you that Lord Beldaruit passed this morning…
The Silverwood tree had kept Qifrey from getting close to Beldaruit, and now he was gone.
Qifrey had experienced the way the sapling had wrapped its branches around his heart and lungs and squeezed with all the force of a mechanical arm when Beldaruit had ruffled his hair that first time, and he still remembered it with clarity. After that, he’d started to build distance between them ever so slowly, and now he was gone, and he’d lost the only parent he’d ever had.
As his next of kin, you are being summoned to the Great Hall at your earliest convenience…
The man had given him a name, had given him a birthday and an age and everything that mattered, but what was worse was that he’d given Qifrey a home, and Qifrey had soundly rejected it due to a literal parasite invading his airways and veins. He wished, now, that he hadn’t.
We understand that Lord Beldaruit had adopted you as a son…
Qifrey wanted to hurl himself out the window and run as far away as he could manage, wanted to succumb to the tree and never return whole again, wanted to-
With a sick sort of feeling in his stomach, Qifrey realised that he just wanted a hug from Beldaruit.
The sobs had stopped a while ago, but miserable tears were still coursing down his cheeks, and he was taking little gasps of air that he wasn’t sure were properly reaching his lungs.
The news must have come as a shock to you, but we assure you he was not in pain.
The claws around his heart and lungs, which he’d gotten used to, suddenly retreated with such a speed that Qifrey was jolted out of his miserable stupor and onto his hands and knees, coughing with such fervour now that he was afraid the grief would choke him until he died.
Deep within Qifrey, something dislodged.
The coughs kept coming, gasps and leaves and breaths not yet taken consuming him with all the force of an impending herd of liongoats, and just before he thought he would not yet survive this, it happened.
From the deep depths of where it was entangled with his soul, a single seed, complete with roots, expelled itself from his mouth and bounced to land innocently in front of him.
Exhausted beyond comprehension, though, Qifrey passed out.
Yours sincerely, the Healing Spire.
Qifrey awoke to pounding on his door and voices calling his name.
“Qifrey!” Olruggio’s voice drifted loudly through the door, sounding slightly panicked.
“What-” Qifrey murmured, before the seed and the roots and all the blood that he wasn’t aware he’d coughed up became clear to him once more, and so too did his memories of the letter.
Beldaruit, dead. And Qifrey was still here, with the strangely silver looking seed and the results of his grief and loss and a raw, gaping hole within. He gasped for air briefly again while looking at it, hands flying to his throat and patting himself down, trying to find proof of what he was suspecting.
His hands tugged his top off his shoulder then, turning to half-face the mirror and expecting the normal branch coating his skin. But instead…bare skin. Blessed bare skin with nary a blemish in sight.
Qifrey half-choked on a sob at what he could scarcely believe he was seeing, but forced it down and opened the door to meet Olruggio’s eyes. The other man was clearly startled by the appearance of his friend for the first time since he started banging on his door a good ten minutes ago, after the apprentices had come to him in a panic at hearing Qifrey cry so heartbreakingly. He’d sent them back to their rooms, barely concealing his worry and assuring them their master would be fine.
However there was no explanation beyond the blood, Qifrey only collapsing into him and beginning to cry. The tears that came now were both in relief and the aching grief that now he couldn’t obtain the comfort he’d been seeking all his life from the man who had given him everything.
Beldaruit wasn’t here, Qifrey knew. But Olruggio was, and Qifrey allowed himself to soak in his presence as well as the bittersweet revelation that he would no longer have to hide from this part of his soul.