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'Cause even under any other creed
The crucifix and the hangman, they both agree
Change comes so cheaply
For those of us already at the table
Qifrey would believe it if someone told him he had been born with a noose around his neck.
Death has chased his every step in one form or another and now it is in his very shadow, watching for the perfect moment to strike and take him down. The fact that his earliest memories start with him scratching and screaming at the lid of a coffin before Beldaruit had rescued him does nothing to dissuade him from the thought.
But, somehow, the sun still rises on Qifrey. Winter and spring have passed and summer has come again in all its heady, humid, and hot glory.
This particular afternoon, though, Qifrey is in the cool of the kitchen, staring a recipe down with Agott. Tetia and Coco are by the empty fireplace, going over some sort of advanced spell theory that was just a tiny bit above what they were actually at, but boredem had been unanimously declared, prompting Qifrey to drop the book in their hands and telling them to have fun.
Richeh, as she is wont to do when she is not in the mood to do anything, has curled up against Coco and is napping, the brushbuddy flopped on top of her in its own nap.
Agott, though, had wandered into the kitchen an hour or so ago and hadn't left after placing herself at the kitchen table with a few scribbled notes that she had zoned out on a few minutes ago, her pen unmoving, prompting Qifrey to slowly slide a recipe across the table into her line of vision and wait patiently.
She picks up the paper and reads over it slowly, an eyebrow raising. "Are you certain about this?"
"Entirely," Qifrey responds in the same, even tone.
"You know I suck in the kitchen."
"I think this should be simple enough. The spell on the cooler will need to be modified, though."
"Or the spell placed directly on the dish," Agott muses out loud.
"Olruggio told me the grandmother he got it from specifically stated to not do that."
Qifrey mimics an exploding noise, waggling his fingers for extra affect. It's worth the small eyeroll from Agott at his antics that overlays her considering hum.
When he drops his hands into his lap, though, his fingers and wrists seize a bit in pain, curling inwards slightly, and he has to fight to keep a grimace off of his face. The storm last night had set off some of his darker memories, leaving his brief couple hours of sleep ridden with nightmares of ghosts from the past and brimhats doing horrible things. He's had a resting headache since yesterday morning, before the storm blew in in the afternoon, which isn't unusual in and of itself, but the days of the rainy season are usually when he sleeps the least.
And when he sleeps little, that's usually when other nightmares make their presence known in the daylight hours.
"I was thinking we could modify the filling to be strawberry instead blueberry, since Tetia doesn't like blueberries," Qifrey continues. "But other than that, I think it really should be easy."
Agott sets down the recipe with resolve in her eyes. "Let's do it."
One tiny explosion unrelated to spells later and Agott and Qifrey are staring at a mostly normal looking icebox case sitting in the newly created ice box.
"We actually did it," Agott says, no small amount of shock in her voice.
Qifrey chuckles. "I told you we could. Good job, Agott."
Agott brightens up at the praise, a small grin directed Qifrey's direction.
But then something flares blindingly bright through the whole kitchen from where Coco and Tetia are, causing searing pain to spear his remaining eye and directly into his skull, and Qifrey collapses to the ground with a cry, clutching his face.
He can hear Agott yelling as well, something sharp and angry and in pain, but Qifrey can't move, can't speak, can't do anything-
The pain grows to be truly unbearable and conciousness flees him.
When Qifrey wakes up, the pain is a dull ache in his head and across his body, everything is dark, and he can hear the faint pitter-patter of rain.
He panics.
"Qifrey, Qifrey!"
Gentle hands push on his shoulders as he gasps for air, struggling against the hold, the voice foreign to his panicking mind, until he hears-
"Qifrey, for the love of everything, please don't make me put you under again-"
Worried. Concerned. Tearful.
"Ol…ly?"
"Yes, it's me, Qifrey."
Qifrey stop struggling, panting.
He can't see, he can't see, he can't see.
"Coco and Tetia accidentally blinded everyone with the spell they attempted," Olruggio says, voice sounding strained, like he'd been talking too much. He also sounds kind of rambly, like when he's trying to distract Qifrey from other thoughts and is spinning out words on the first topic he can think to talk about. "The spell was temporary and a complete, thank goodness, but it's been a rough few days. All the girls got hit by it, Richeh just woke up a few hours ago and she's still mostly blind, but it seems like it's wearing off. She's the last one, Coco, Tetia, and Agott are fine."
Qifrey slumps boneless into the bed, the rest of the fight going out of him. The mattress dips a little bit as Olruggio sits down on the edge of it, hand slipping down to grasp Qifrey's hand.
He squeezes Olruggio's hand tightly. "Sorry."
Olruggio huffs. "Don't apologize. When it started raining this morning, you started stirring, so I was expecting it. Honestly, the fact that you didn't punch me in the face is an improvement from last time, I must say."
That's funny. Or rather, it will be funny later. Qifrey still wants to crawl out of his skin, but the panic is slowly subsiding.
He gathers the tiniest bit of courage to ask about the elephant in the room. "Am I…"
The courage collapses underneath the fear.
"Blind? No, we don't think so, it should be temporary, but given how weak your eye is already, your recovery time will probably be longer."
Better news than he was hoping for, at least.
Thunder rumbles quietly in the distance, making Qifrey shudder.
He hears Olruggio take a deep breath. "When you feel better, we need to talk," Olruggio says solemnly. "About your health. Specifically your vision, because clearly there's been some changes you haven't filled me in on if the spell on your glasses is of any indictaor, but overall it's clear something has been up with you these last few years and it is getting worse."
Qifrey's heart twists in his chest. Oh, Olruggio. He does know, he has known, so many times over and over, and he can't know. If Olruggio knows, knows the full truth in all its ugly glory, then Qifrey dies, and the life he has been hanging on to by a thread will snap, cut by fate's sharp and cruel scissors.
"Alright," he agrees quietly, in a song he has repeated over the years, enough times that he no longer needs to read the music for it. The silverwood rustles and whispers in his limbs, so ominously aware of any possibility of being free. "We'll talk."
(They do talk, much much later. It ends in Qifrey wiping Olruggio's memories for the thousand time, his very soul shattering again. Sometimes, he wonders how many more times he is going to have to do this before he simply gives up and lets the silverwood take its course.)
The rain starts to fall heavier.
"Do you think that the girls would want to all sit together in the living room?" hQifrey asks. I don't want to be alone.
"I'm sure they would be delighted to," Olruggio says. "But if you pass out again when you stand up, we're all coming in here so you can lie down."
Thankfully, Qifrey does not pass out upon standing from his sickbed. He does, however, almost throw up from the dizziness that hits him, forcing him to sit back down for a few minutes until his body seems to reacquaint itself with actually being concious.
"Actually, I'm going to bring them up here," Olruggio suddenly decides. "The stairs are probably going to be more difficult than either of us want them to be, and I would rather not have to deal with any paperwork that would come from you falling down and breaking your neck."
"We could make the stairs morph into a slide," Qifrey muses, only half-joking.
"Absolutely not!"
They get Qifrey propped up and comfortable in his bed first before Olruggio goes to get the girls and help them up the stairs.
It is deathly quiet after Olruggio leaves.
Qifrey sits with his hands folded in his lap, head bowed, ears searching for any other sound than the rain and the wind.
He doesn't like being alone with his thoughts very much. Usually, it is not this bad, the darker things keeping to themselves, but with the rain, the silverwood, and not being able to see, he is left feeling rather helpless, like a rabbit caught in a trap with the hunter looming over him with a knife to deal the killing blow.
Qifrey suddenly finds himself wishing-
"Master Qifrey!"
There's the sound of running steps, Olruggio telling them to walk not run, you're still getting your vision back!, and then two twin thumps on the bed, Qifrey bouncing a little bit from the rebound.
A more gentle weight is added to the bed, he hears Richeh complaining before her voice is closer and then right on top of him, and then he is absolutely smothered by four bodies, voices overlapping each other.
It grounds him, the sound of the rain and wind completely blotted out by the excited talking of his apprentices as they all settle down, Richeh declaring them sightless buddies, Agott giving detailed descriptions of what it was like when her sight started to return, Coco and Tetia veering way off into spell theory to try and explain what had gone wrong, and in the moment of it all, Qifrey would not trade any of it for the world.
Shut it, he hisses venomously to the silverwood when he hears it whispering, claws starting to sink into his bones as his panic and anxiety starts to subside. Come out to play and be burned another day.
The silvewood, for once, retreats and goes silent.