Chapter Text
On a torn scrap of paper, scrawled, balled up, and thrown away:
Olruggio, I’m sorry.
--
On the back of an incomplete spell of pyreball:
You’re with me every day. I miss you. I hate this.
‘Partners in pain.’ You bastard. I would rather have died, so you could be free.
--
On the corner of a beginner’s spell, neatly printed:
I promised.
--
The front of this slip of paper is a calligraphed invitation to a tea party from the Sage Beldaruit to Qifrey. There’s something scrawled on the back:
I promised.
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On a worn, out-of-date map of the Great Hall, where the gate codes are pictured, in small lettering:
I promised.
--
In the sand of the Great Hall’s hot springs, quickly washed away:
I promised.
--
Olruggio,
It’s been one year and one month since the tower. I’ve been studying a lot, in the interim, about Silverwood trees. I found this interesting: they usually don’t take root in people. Something to do with anxiety. I wonder if I was an unusually happy child. Funny to think about, right?
I’ve decided to follow through on my promise to you. I know, I know: you’ll gripe that it’s been too long for me to say that, now. I can picture your face. You get loud, sometimes. Well, you can give me loads of crap about it if you ever when you read this.
In that time, I’ve wiped your memory seven times. There were two in the first two weeks, which is when I considered walking into the water again. But you’d tethered me too effectively. I kept imagining you getting the news. I threw up on Beldaruit’s feet thinking about it, which I hope will make you laugh.
I avoided you for two months after that. It was very effective in keeping me alive. You’ve given me a tightrope, Olruggio. How can I continue our adventure if I must lie to you all the time? I thought the betrayal of distance might work as a substitute. Then, on a particularly bad day, I showed up crying on your doorstep. You really do forgive too easily. I have to work twice as hard to keep up all our grudges by myself.
I think I’m too selfish to stay away from you, Olly. I’m sorry.
As to why I write: I’ve decided to preserve a log, of sorts, until I can fix this. I’ll write each time I fail. Hopefully this will be the only letter, and I can present it to you in a few short months.
Before this last wipe, I’d always known what went wrong: I let something slip, or got sloppy with my notes, or just told you what was happening. Last night, though, you approached me unprompted in the library. As it happens, I was only studying animal signs at the time – my spells can look like dragons! – but you suspected, correctly, that there’s been something else taking my attention. You asked what I was hiding from you and offered to help me. A branch protruded from my eye, then, rather breaking the mood. Leaves growing towards you.
I’ve gotten a lot better at lying. Until last night, I’d managed a whole six months without you catching on. I kept thinking: it’s strange that my smiles comfort you, when you taught me the trick of it. I’ll try not to hold it against you.
Each time I use your spell, it hurts worse than the last. I thought it would get better, maybe, with practice. Shows what I know. You cut right to the core of me with this trick.
I’m learning the balance of pain in our friendship. Here’s what I’ve managed to figure out. Hopefully, in writing this out, we can find our way back when I fix this.
We can:
Wrestle, tussle, run away, fight, or other participate in any other high-energy physical activity together.
Steal Beldy’s wine and get very drunk.
Prank people (Easthies in particular, but this is probably generally applicable).
Gossip about comings and goings and feel proud of ourselves for being straightforward.
Invent spells, either cooperatively or competitively.
Explore, both inside and outside the great hall.
Cook and share meals. (Although I’ve found that not eating much keeps me more uncomfortable, which allows me leeway in other, more desirable things, like spending time with you. You eat more when I’m with you, though, so it stays on the list. You stopped getting a say when you wiped my memory and doomed me to lie to you. Tough.)
Work together in dealings with others, socially or magically. This applies to everyone: non-magic users, other students, and authority figures, notably. I’m very glad of this. It bodes well for maintaining our friendship in this muck. At least we can stand side-by-side.
I cannot:
Seek or receive gentleness. The first time I stepped back when you tried to hug me – if I’m feeling too comfortable I can always picture that ugly twist in your face, at least. I miss sleeping in the same bed as you. I miss letting you grab my hand. I can’t accept these things now, and yet you flinch every time I pull away. When you read this, please know that I miss these things very much.
Discuss the future. I think of that shepherd’s hut you showed me often, Olly, out under the stars in the Naakiwan Downs, far away from this cold, dank place. I hope to go back there with you. – Do you know, the roots twisted right now, even writing that down? How morbid.
Talk about our friendship. You haven’t asked again why we switched tassels. It’s become a bit of a pattern. You press into something pertaining to our intertwined lives, I shut it down, and you don’t ask again. Telling you unprompted has been the impetus for three of the wipes, so far, so that’s right out.
If this is to be the place where I keep my truths to you, let me say here, at least: You are my first and only friend. You are the reason there is a future for me, in more ways that your annoyingly effective plan for the Silverwood. As I have learned I cannot leave you, I will do my best to rid myself of this curse so that we can remain, side by side, for as long as you wish.
There are pieces of our friendship left to us, at least. A rather promising balance, all things considered. I guess we’ll just be taking a lot on trust.
The tree grows at unexpected times. I will be writing by the fire while you’re working on a new spell, and I can feel it twist under my skin. You’ll smile at me from across the cafeteria, and I feel a throbbing pain. I guess it doesn’t hurt worse than it did before; I’m just more aware of it, now.
Sometimes I wonder if I can strike a balance, accept enough pain to be happy. Feel too much hurt to change.
I suppose it’s too early to plan for the worst-case scenario.
Qifrey
-
Olruggio,
I didn’t quite make it in time to prevent another wipe. Sorry. This time you tricked me, told me you had a lead on the Brimmed Caps and knew which gate location to follow them through. You let us trek all the way up those stairs together and then let me have it right under the stars. Said you knew already that I’d been looking into Brimmed Caps again without you and I just confirmed it when I followed you without question. You said – let me get this right – you said, “We agreed not to lie to each other, Qifrey, but you still forget sometimes that I know you. So do it, lie to me all you want, but know that I’m going to catch you out on it every time. You’re just trying to protect me anyway.”
You have quite the talent for ominous messaging, Olly. It had the oddest energy of you cursing both of us all over again.
You were right, which I’m sure you’ll be insufferable about. I’ve gotten far enough into my Silverwood research to know that witches don’t know enough about the tree to explain what’s been done to me, let alone how to undo it. The Brimmed Caps it is. Looks like I’m going hunting again.
I suppose I should include, for reference: Beldy confiscated our Sylph shoes a few days ago because we were wandering so much. You’ll remember that, at least. I still maintain that he had no right to take yours, as you’re not his student. That ‘I’m the Wise in Teachings,’ argument is, and pardon my language, bullshit.
Please imagine, then, the whole argument and my subsequent deforestation (thanks for that, by the way) with both of us sweaty and out of breath from having climbed too many stairs.
*A doodle of Olruggio, mouth open mid-shout, with an indignant expression on his face. His bangs are plastered to his forehead with sweat. For a teenager, it’s a fair doodle. Olruggio is recognizable, if a bit exaggerated and simplified.*
Do you know, you’re the witch who taught me magic? Real magic, not all that corruption and rules and dehumanization weighed down by the literal ocean of water.
You’ll remember this bit: waking up outside and seeing me shivering. I remember being so miserable I didn’t even realize I’d gotten damp from the sea-mist. You did though. You didn’t know where we were, I think, and still the first thing you did was scrawl a spell to keep us dry and warm. You made the fire in the shape of scale-wolves, dancing all around us.
A few weeks ago, you caught me looking up pictures of animals instead of studying. I must have looked at the scalewolf page over twenty times. You pretended like you didn’t notice, to keep me unembarrassed, maybe, and then immediately turned around and learned to use the shapes in your casting. Ha. How the scales of our dishonesty are balanced.
I’m getting off-track.
What I wanted to say was this: you make people smile with your magic. I want to do that too.
I guess this is what Beldaruit has been trying to teach me, with all his sparkles and rainbows and such. You have him beat though: your magic alleviates suffering as well as gifting beauty.
Do you think I can do that, Olly? Draw some joy into the world?
Maybe I’ll ask you about it. That’s harmless enough.
Qifrey
--
Olly,
I can’t:
Kiss you. I should have known this: it was in my first letter. ‘I can’t seek or receive gentleness.’ I always was a slow learner.
It’s little justification, but I thought, I suppose, that if I kept myself excited and nervous I could maybe have this. That it might fall under ‘high energy physical activity.’ Everyone always describes these things as uncomfortable: “burning for you,” “butterflies in my stomach,” “lovesick.” It seemed as though it might be easy, even, to make this loophole for myself.
You called me an artist, when I asked about my magic. You said it didn’t come from Beldaruit or you: that I’d discovered the gentleness all on my own, alone in the dark without hope of reward. You said it inspired you.
You said I was beautiful.
You were surprised when I kissed you. Your eyes went as big as they had last Silver Eve, when that storm-catcher spell was revealed and they caught all that snow in the tiny little bottle. Neither of us knew where to put our hands.
Do you know, I find your smile quite handsome. I keep thinking about how warm your lips were, against mine.
After, you said you didn’t know I felt the same. If it’s any consolation, I wouldn’t have been able to name it. I just…didn’t see how else I could possibly respond. I was digging my nails into the skin of my palm, then, trying to delay the inevitable.
I fear I’m beginning to starve for you, Olly, and in starving grasp you all the more tightly. You’ve always deserved better than me, but now that I’ve stolen this as well…
You should remember your first kiss, shouldn’t you?
I keep thinking about it. Before now, it was just necessity, right? You said so: the kind of lie only a friend would tell. But this? I’ve taken something from you, now, that you can never get back.
Worse.
I’m withholding a truth I know would make you happy.
I hadn’t fully transformed in front of you again, since that time at the tower, until today. There’s a second time for everything, right? My body stops hurting so much when the roots dig into the ground, excepting my heart. I cried again. You kissed me, pushing aside the branches, and then held the spell up to your forehead with exactly the same smile as the first time. It’s burned behind my eyelids.
I don’t know if I can do this, Olly.
Qifrey