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The first person to greet Qifrey as he woke up in the medical spire wasn’t any member of his atelier. There was no anxious chattering from his apprentices as they eagerly held onto his hands and counted his breaths. He didn’t wake up to Olruggio’s ever warm presence by his side, like a star orbiting on its axis. No, instead Qifrey woke up to a blur of lights and colors that never took a definable shape despite how hard he strained his vision. When Qifrey woke up, the first sound that greeted him was a familiar lullaby with no words being hummed between shaky breaths. One of his hands clasped above the blankets as gentle fingers traced patterns on the back of his hand. The lingering scent of incense and tea eased his mind awake.
Suspended in the liminal space between rest and consciousness, Qifrey limbs were heavy as gravity pressed him to the stiff mattress of the medical cot. He didn’t want to interrupt the lullaby, having not heard it fully since he was a child. It was the same lullaby Beldaruit would use to soothe him to sleep. A song for when the nights drew long and the intangible memories haunted the dark corners of his room. Hearing it now was like being dropped back into those scattered memories, curled against his master’s side as the man would trace decorative sigils onto his palm.
Qifrey didn’t really think this far ahead. Removing the silverwood roots was already a step that felt as if he was one step away from reawakening in the cursed coffin he was pulled from. Yet reality is not something to be made a fool of.
“Master?” Qifrey calls voice hoarse in his throat. A small part of him, the one that is still a child curled in the lap of the first person to offer him warmth, begs for proof that this is real. That he won’t wake up scratching his nails raw on the unmoving wood of his coffin. “Is that you?”
The lullaby stutters before stopping. Beldaruit inhales shakily at his side the idle patterns he was tracing into the back of his hands stop as he presses his forehead to Qifrey’s knuckles. “You’re awake.” Beldaruit exhales like a prayer, something suspiciously like tears fall onto Qifrey’s forearm.
In retrospect it was an unforeseen relief that it was Beldaruit who was there when Qifrey woke up. Qifrey doesn’t know if he would have been able to pull up the carefully constructed facade of perceived calm for others. Doesn’t think he could as he turns his head to seek out his former master and yet, all that greet him are blurs of colors and light.
“I can’t- I can’t see you.” Qifrey whispers, blood rushing in his ears as he tries to give the blur of colors a definitive boundary. It doesn’t work. The gentle hue of what he knows to be Beldaruit’s robes swirl with the grays of the Medical Spire, mixing together like paint dipped in water. “Master, I can’t see you.”
Hands cup his cheeks, the cool metal of the rings Beldaruit wears ground him as it presses into his cheekbone. Beldaruit shushes him gently, smoothing a thumb over his brow as if he were a boy again. “It’s alright, my child, it’s alright.” Beldaruit soothes him with whispered words, Qifrey fights with gravity to lift his arm weakly clinging to the older man’s sleeve. “The doctors had said that with how intertwined the roots were with your eye, some level of sight loss was bound to happen.”
The words sound almost too good to be true. Yet as Qifrey presses into the comforting hold of his master’s hands, his lungs are still able to take in a full breath. That startles him more than his vision. Qifrey takes in another stuttering breath, almost making himself light headed holding it in anticipation of the suffocating embrace of the silverwood. And yet, no silverwood branches entwine itself within his ribs. Gravity pulls his arm back down as he flexes his fingers, the fabric of Beldaruit’s sleeve offering a gentle slide down as his arm meets the mattress. He was able to still freely stretch his fingers without the ache of fighting against the silverwood. A sob claws its way out of his chest, tears rendering his already abysmal vision moot as they spill rivers down his cheeks.
Qifrey doesn't quite know what to do with himself. Since as long as he remembers living, he has always been aware of the parasite within his veins. It had no name for a time, just the ever looming discomfort of being on the other end of affection. At first he had agreed with the assumption that his body simply did not recognize friend from foe. His past always kept itself enshrouded within the dark corners of his mind, glimpses there and gone like a ghost’s whispers. It was hard to know why he always seemed so finely tuned to reject anything kind.
And then he was given a name for it. The very tree that was the foundation of witches magic. Silverwood, said to only sprout in a place of its choosing. A fantastical story, nothing more than a fairy tale. How wonderfully beautiful the idea was, that such a tree could choose where it wanted to grow its roots. How grossly ironic, that it would deny its host the same kind of contentment.
Qifrey’s life thus after became the world's crudest balancing act. How close could he come before there was no return? How much could he take from those around him before he was seen as irredeemable? It was exhausting, always being one miss step away from tumbling off the edge. Unable to fully apologize because he knows he would have to do the same thing again. No matter how many times he would promise himself no more. That he would live with the consequences of loving.
There were so many times where he had wished he could turn to someone, anyone, with the truth that clogged his throat like thorny vines. That the burden wouldn’t bear down its weight on his shoulders alone. He has lost track of the multitude of times he had pulled the thorns from his throat. How the truth would ensnare his wrists with that damned tear laced spell. He hates that even while his hands trembled he could never mess up the forsaken thing that would whisk away the memories as if they were just ripe fruits ready to be plucked.
Sometimes on the ever increasing occasions where the suns brightness felt a touch too mocking, Qifrey would return to the Great Hall. Not to wander its markets or make his presence known to those inhabiting it’s depths, but to hide. Qifrey has always had an awful sense of direction, a fact both Olruggio and Alaria relentlessly tease him for whenever either are given the chance. Alaria is more helpful out of the two awful human beings he has the honor of calling his friends. Taking the lead and pointing out landmarks for future references whenever they can set time aside for drinks or to simply wander around town together, arms linked as their chatter filled the empty air between them. Olruggio tends to follow right behind him whenever he goes down a straying path, along for the ride as he would always say. With a grin that just barely bordered on smarmy stretched across his face. Yet he seemed to always set them back on the right path before Qifrey could stew in the frustration of his lack of direction.
Within the Great Hall, there was one place Qifrey was able to find even if he were to tie a blindfold around his eyes. Well, there was another- but Olruggio and him never did have to go too far to find each other. No matter where he may have been within the Great Hall, Qifrey was always able to find the path back to the Silver Garden. The underwater grove was something of a haven to him. With how sacred the trees kept within its boundaries were to witches very few people ever visited. When he was a child that had felt nothing but the public scorn, such a place where others were scarce within the Great Hall was as sacred to him as the silver trees within. As a child who knew very little, unburdened with the truth on how their roots grew within the depths, he would climb the trunks of the trees to the highest branches sturdy enough to hold his weight. Like a bird reaching for the highest resting spot within its too cramped enclosure.
Even after he grew to understand the truth behind the silverwood tree, the haven he had found within the underwater stronghold was not something he was easily able to let go of. So many times throughout the years has Beldaruit found him hiding within the grove, skulking around in the branches a part of him knew wouldn’t break under his weight. The elder never said anything within those moments, only ever settled his sealchair between the roots of the trees and read a book from his collection or worked through the mountain papers with his name attached to them. A careful distance, one that Qifrey always cowardly hid in. It would become a waiting game of sorts, which one would happen first? Would Beldaruit be called away to attend to obligations as a Sage, or would Qifrey spill the truth between the leaves? Thank whatever gods above that Beldaruit was never able to stay as long as the man would’ve liked.
Qifrey was a bit too old to hide away within the billowing robes Beldaruit wore as he did when he was younger. Yet, he reaches for the undefinable figure of his master sitting at his bedside, body protesting the movement fiercely with sharp needle like stabs lancing up and down his arms. He doesn’t have to strain himself too much, as Beldaruit envelopes his trembling form as Qifrey weakly grasps at the snow white robes.
“This entire time…” Beldaruit whispers, carding a trembling hand through Qifrey’s hair unwinding the tangles that had formed from however long he’s been unconscious. “I can’t imagine how exhausted you must be, my dear child.”
“I’m sorry.” Qifrey gasps out between what feels like too much air and too little at the same time.
“Whatever for?” Beldaruit asks, his hand pausing for barely a second before warmly resting on the crown of Qifrey’s head.
Qifrey’s shoulders curl around his ears. Instead of truth, the ever familiar weight of guilt settles its heavy mantle upon him. “I’ve done so many cruel things. All with the poor excuse of living.”
“I’d hardly call living a poor excuse.” Beldaruit says, easing his hand down to the nape of Qifrey’s neck. “How long have I known you now? Believe me when I tell you, you are nowhere near the wretched creature you seem to think of yourself as.”
“Aren’t I?” Qifrey can’t help but ask, unable to lift his head from where it was hidden in the excess fabric of Beldaruit’s outer robe. It always amused Qifrey how much others would struggle to differentiate between the dust sculpture of Beldaruit and the real man himself. When it comes to dust sculptures Beldaruit was always a touch more frivolous in the details, lines that would give hint to the age he has lived to would often disappear. The man’s hands were prone to minute tremors, such a detail not replicated within his sculptures. Not to mention Beldaruit often let his dust sculptures have an extra amount of flair when it came to his hair, the ends an ever shifting curtain of sand that never leaves a trail. Though the last one was when he was trying to put on a bit of a show for the younger children. Otherwise if Beldaruit truly wished it not many would be able to pick out the inconsistencies.
Qifrey knew from the moment he had woken up that Beldaruit was physically present beside him. Not just because of the way Beldaruit’s hand trembled as he clasped Qifrey’s, but because of the ever comforting scent of incense and the sharp note of erbe tea. It clings to the man, sinking into his robes and beckoning Qifrey to sink into a much kinder embrace. “Surely knowing the extent of what I’ve done, how should I ever beg for forgiveness? Or for you to regard me as anything but a coward?”
“You see that’s the thing about asking for forgiveness, my dear child. It is not for you to decide if you’re worthy of it or not. Allow me to be the first of many to assure you that you are not unforgivable,” Beldaruit says, easing his fingers into Qifrey’s hair to play with the strands. “I would never be able to think of you as any less than what you are. And you are mine, have been since the moment I dug you from that coffin. There is nothing you could do or say that would ever make me regard you as anything else than that.”
Atlas had to learn how to bear the weight of the world upon his shoulders, and similarly Qifrey has learned how to dance along the cliffs edge with guilt dressed in truth. The guilt that clings to him cannot be fully eased with just a few words. Qifrey knows this, has known this longer than he was comfortable thinking about. He is a creature who has found security within its ever oppressive folds. Hides within it, because for the longest of times it was the only measure of safety he was sure of. Qifrey has traded his water logged coffin for a tomb made of the rubble from his sins.
He is not Atlas, does not have the strength of a god to bear the burden of condemnation. Qifrey was human, even when most of who he is now was formed around the silver roots that had once integrated within his veins. In this moment he felt like little more than a child being exhumed from an existence of slowly drowning nothingness. No ghostly whispers taunt him with the knowledge of a past he isn’t privy to as Qifrey sinks into the overflowing fabrics that smell of incense and tea. Doing nothing to shake off the hand that sets to untangling his hair once again. The truth is no longer his own to drown in, and if only for this moment he was sheltered from the weight of his own tomb.