Archive of Our Own

The term "Pavlov's dog" originates from the seminal experiments conducted by the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov. In his research, he rang a bell every time he fed his dogs, and eventually, they learned to salivate at the sound of the bell alone even when no food was present.

The term is commonly used to describe learned behavior through repetition and reinforcement. Metaphorically, it refers to any habitual action or reaction that has been cultivated through prior association, such that an individual performs a given behavior because they have been conditioned to anticipate a particular outcome.

Olruggio was barely more than a child then, tiny beneath the mountains of wool and fur his mother had bundled him into. Each layer made him feel like a overstuffed doll, arms held out at awkward angles and legs too stiff to run properly. The cold had always been a bitter, gnawing thing in Ghodrey, seeping through even the thickest garments if you stood still too long, and his breath puffed out in ghostly clouds with every exhale.

He could taste the frost on his tongue and feel the sting of it in his lungs as he darted through the snow, leaving a trail of clumsy footprints behind him. The other children from next door were scattered somewhere nearby, their game of hide-and-seek becoming an affair filled by giggles and the crunch of boots on frozen ground.

There was a tree far enough from the main path that it wouldn't be the first place anyone checked, but not so remote that he'd be left forgotten if the others grew bored. It was a nice place to hide — close enough to be found, far enough to feel clever. Besides, the youngest of the three siblings was the one doing the seeking today, and Olruggio knew she had a habit of bursting into tears when the game stretched on too long. Her brothers always rolled their eyes and muttered about her being a baby, but Olruggio didn't mind her dramatics.

Furthermore, he'd rather be found quickly and help her hunt down the others than crouch alone in the snow, listening to the silence of a world muffled in white. He never had been fond of being alone.

As he sat down, trying to fight the boredom as time passed, counting the trees in front of him, the minutes stretched for far too long. He picked on a loose thread in one of his sleeves, chewing on his lower lip as he debated with himself. Be found too quickly and look dumb, or stay hidden and risk something being wrong?

The choice wasn't really a choice at all. He pushed himself out from behind the tree and trudged back toward the spot where she'd started counting to fifty, his boots sinking deep with each step.

As he was approaching, the sound of muffled sobs drifted through the town, accompanied by the exasperated voices of her brothers. Olruggio rounded a snow-laden bush and found the three of them huddled near a frozen pond, the youngest sister sitting squarely on the ground with her knees drawn up and her face buried in her mittens.

"That's why I told you not to run, dummy," the oldest was saying, his tone caught somewhere between annoyed and worried. "You always end up falling, and then mom and dad get mad at us."

Her other brother rubbed the back of his neck, glancing around nervously as if expecting their mother to materialize from the snow, ready to yell at them. "Do you think they'll scold us? Mom said we were supposed to look after her." He paused, then added with a grimace, "At least she didn't get hurt."

"If she doesn't tattle on us like she always does, they probably won't even find out."

Olruggio stepped up beside them, peering down at the little girl. Her nose was bright red, the tip of it almost raw-looking, and the knuckles of her small hands, visible where her mittens had slipped, were chapped and flushed from the biting air. Tears had frozen in tiny crystals along her lashes, and she hiccupped pitifully between sobs.

"Oh, hey, Olruggio." The oldest brother scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Sorry for taking too long, we got into a bit of a mess. She fell, and now she won't stop crying. Urgh. We'll calm her down and probably head home. I don't want Mom nagging us if she catches something."

"It's alright," Olruggio said, already crouching down to bring himself to her eye level, his heart already leaning forward with the urge to help. "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head, sniffling wetly, and then her voice came out small and watery. "'M just cold."

Cold. That, he could fix!

Without a second thought, he pulled his palm quire from the inner pocket of his coat, the leather cover cold against his fingers. He didn't bother with discretion, after all, Ghodrey was a town full of witches, and no one would bat an eye at a child drawing a fire spell in the snow.

He sucked on his tongue, brow furrowing as he tried to recall exactly how the drawing went. His father used it all the time to light the lamps around the house, a quick flicker of flame that danced obediently onto the wick. Olruggio had watched him do it a hundred times, maybe a thousand, and he was certain he could replicate it from memory alone, even if he never tried it before.

The adults were always telling him to start with the baby spells first, to crawl before he could run, but wasn't he special? Wasn't he the Star of Ghodrey? Surely he could leap ahead just this once.

Confident in himself, he began to draw, letting his fingers move across the paper with the kind of clumsy certainty only a child could possess, lines wobbling here and there, a curve that veered too wide, a stroke that doubled back on itself. Still, he nodded to himself, preening under the curious gazes of the siblings. He closed the circle with a flourish, already eager to see if it would come out exactly as he wanted.

But the moment the magic came to light, he realized his mistake.

The flame that burst forth was not the small, obedient spark he had intended. It grew far too fast and far too large. Before he could even process what was happening, the tip of his index finger from the hand still holding his pen was caught in the hungry lick of the flames.

He yelped, and reflexively yanked his hand back, cradling it against his chest as the pain bloomed across his skin. It was a vicious, throbbing heat, nothing like the cozy warmth of a hearth, and he bit his lip so hard he tasted copper, doing everything in his power to keep the tears that burned at his eyes from spilling over.

His focus on the pain blooming on his skin shattered, however, when he heard a chorus of soft ooohs from the three siblings. The two brothers stared at the flickering flame above his paper with wide-eyed wonder, their earlier annoyance completely forgotten. And the little girl had drawn closer, her tear-streaked face tilting toward the heat. Her sobs had quieted to sniffles, her small body leaning into the warmth instinctively. A few seconds later, her face split into a delighted grin, and she looked up at him with shining eyes.

"Do it again! That was amazing! Do it again, ‘ruggio!"

As he cradled his burned finger against his chest, the pain pulsing in time with his heartbeat, Olruggio stared down at her happy face, and something clicked on his brain.

.

There are screams followed by the sharp, wet sound of bones crunching. Then, silence.

Someone at his right is praying, which surprises him. Olruggio isn’t sure if he’s ever heard a witch pray before. They don't seem the type.

“Stars above, that burn so bright… hear the voice of one who has forgotten the way… Please, let us find the mercy of a swift end, or grant us the strength to burn a little longer before the night claims us completely...”

He doesn’t know why they don’t ask for help instead of mercy. It seems silly.

A gentle, warm hand pats his head with a warmth that feels almost out of place. He looks up and his mother is smiling at him, but she doesn’t look happy. Olruggio knows what joy looks like on her, has seen it when she braided his father’s hair, when she pulled him into her arms and held on like she'd never let go. This isn’t it.

They both turn toward the door, waiting for his father to come back.

Time passes, but it doesn’t open and he doesn’t come back. The only sound is the blizzard howling beyond the walls. Olruggio doesn't know if he prefers the silence over the screams. Doesn't know if that is even something to be preferred at all.

Olruggio wakes with a gasp, his body lurching upright in the familiar dark of his room at the Grand Hall. His hair is plastered to his forehead, oily with sweat, and his chest heaves like he's been running. The sheets are tangled around his legs. If he closes his eyes, he can still hear the snow. Can still feel the cold pressing against the thin walls of that house. Can still wonder if they will all freeze to death or be eaten alive first.

He can't bring himself to forget.

His mother's back looks wide and lonely when she leaves the house they were hiding in. The door swings shut behind her, and the wind swallows the sound.

She doesn't come back.

Once in a while, the others sheltering with him — strangers, neighbors, witches he had only seen in passing — pull him into their arms and murmur apologies against his hair. He doesn't understand what they're apologizing for. They didn't do anything wrong. But he hugs them back anyway, watching the fire and the lamp flames twist and flicker across the walls, casting shadows that crawl like living things.

It's still cold, despite it all. He finds himself feeling a dull, useless anger at the fire for being so powerless. Its only job was just to bring warmth and light, and still, the frost creeped in.

Olruggio throws the blankets aside, the air biting against his damp skin. His fingers tremble as he draws a fire sigil in his palm quire, hoping to make the room less dark. A small, sputtering flame comes to life. Nodding to himself, Olruggio moves to his table, sitting in the chair there. He opens a book, its spine cracked from years of use, pages filled with cramped references and figures he knows by heart.

He begins to draw. It comes out wrong. He scowls, crushing the paper in his fist, and hurls it somewhere into the dark. He takes a fresh sheet, tries again, shaking his head, grinding his teeth.

It’s hard to forget how he saw his parents leaving through that door and didn’t fight to go after them. Maybe there was something he could have done. A line. Maybe there was someone else he could have saved. A circle. Maybe if he had insisted on going harder, followed them out—

Maybe they would still be alive.

His concentration shatters, and the bubble of hot water he's attempting to bring to life collapses, splashing across his hands.

He hisses as the heat scalds his already scarred palms — the most messed up tapestry he knows, filled with white and pink skin, stitched and puckered, the map of every failure he carries. The pain is sharp, but he doesn't pull his hands away, opting to just… stare at them.

He only managed to save two.

Two.

A groan of frustration tears from his throat. He ignores the burning, ignores the trembling in his fingers, ignores the pain, and reaches for his pen once more. Tries again. Somewhere behind his ribs, the snow keeps falling, and spring never comes.

In his mind, so vivid and real he might as well be standing before the city, the snow stretches endlessly, filling everything until Nauz is nothing but a blur of white. Blood splatters are tainting the pristine snow, stark and obscene. Bones lie scattered like broken branches. Before him, tiny as he is, the scene is infinite. Before him, Nauz is home for the scenes of his most horrible nightmares.

The house he comes back to is empty. The city beyond that is weeping. People there learn grief for the first time.

It wasn't always like that.

.

It goes like this: there is someone drowning.

There is someone drowning, and Olruggio jumps before he can think twice about it. His legs move faster than his brain could ever hope to follow, and by the time he registers what he's doing, he's already breaking the surface embracing a body with his own arms.

His attempts are successful. Successful! The word sings through him like a struck bell, bright and reverberating. But the success is not welcomed. The kid he just saved shakes him off with a scowl, dripping and indignant, and walks away leaving wet puddles across the floor.

Olruggio doesn't regret it. He never will.

Because despite the annoyance twisting the other boy's face, and the sharp words directed at him, Olruggio saw the way his lips parted in a shaky exhale when he broke the surface, and how the trembling in his shoulders could not be stopped. Olruggio caught the moment like a falling star, cupped it in his hands, and tucked it somewhere safe inside his heart.

He didn’t know, back then, how important this moment would become. Doesn't know that this boy looking like a wet cat will one day be something much, much more than a stranger.

So for now, he just lets himself fall to the floor, legs giving out beneath him. He sits there, breathless and dripping, and lets the giddiness wash over him like a tide. His heart pounds with the wonderful knowledge that he can save people if he wants to. That he did. That despite all his failures, all the sigils that burned and the spells that fizzled and the expectations that crushed him flat, he still has this.

He still has this.

The count from two goes to three, and he almost cries out of relief.

.

Olruggio learns soon enough that the kid they call cursed — which he still thinks is stupid, because who gets to decide who's blessed and who's cursed anyway? — is named Qifrey.

He tries not to pay much mind to the rumors, knowing better than most what it feels like to be the center of attention when you don't want to be, but the news about Qifrey reaches him anyway. It's hard not to, when it's all anyone talks about. The cursed kid here, Beldaruit's protégé there. The stories twist and tangle, passing from mouth to mouth like fraying rope, growing more elaborate with each retelling.

And yet, for all the talk, none of it tells him who Qifrey really is, or why he doesn't want any friends to the point that he said to Olruggio's face that he wouldn't remember his name.

Even then, Olruggio's curiosity grows. After all, when you're somewhere light never quite reaches, surrounded by water and endless dark, who wouldn't want a friend?

Truth be told, he hadn't really planned to keep an eye on him. It just... happens. Somewhere deep in his mind, he thinks he hears his mother's voice, soft and teasing, saying he has a heart too big for his body. But he knows it's just wishful thinking, because he can't remember her voice anymore.

Qifrey sulks around the corners of the school like the stray cat Olruggio used to care for back in Ghodrey, always watching but never approaching, too wary to trust. He goes to classes and leaves just as quickly, never lingering to chat or play. He barely appears in the dining room for meals, and when he does, he sits alone at the farthest table, eating quickly and leaving before anyone can think to join him. He doesn't talk to any of the other kids. Doesn't seem to want to.

Olruggio tells himself it's none of his business. People are different like that. Some prefer solitude. Some need space. Maybe Qifrey is just one of those.

For all his attempts to stay away, he still ends up meddling too much in matters that are clearly not his concern. And now, here he is again: waking up in the familiar confines of the Healing Spire's bed. At least this time, he muses with a bitter sort of humor, he isn't there for the usual reason. Except, judging by the crisp white bandages wrapped securely around his forearm, they’d taken the liberty of treating his most recent burns while he was unconscious anyway.

He shifts, testing the stiffness in his limbs, grimacing at the weeping pain coming from his right eye, when a soft voice comes from his side.

"Oh, you're awake."

Olruggio nearly jumps out of the bed, his heart lurching violently against his ribs. He whips his head toward the source of the sound, and there, seated in a chair drawn close to his bedside, is Qifrey.

"Stars, don't scare me like that," he manages, pressing a hand to his chest as if to physically steady his racing heart. He can't quite tell if the frantic pounding is from the sudden fright, or from the simple fact that Qifrey is talking to him. "What are you doing here?"

Qifrey doesn't seem affected by the question, if not for the way he nervously fidgets with his hands on his lap where he sits. Olruggio wonders how the other kids saw this and thought ah, cursed.

"I only came here because Master Beldaruit told me to," is what he says, in the end.

Olruggio blinks, processing the statement. The words land with a dull thud, and he feels a flicker of something, disappointment, perhaps, that he quickly shoves down.

"Well, if that's the case, you can go now, then," he says, his tone dismissive as he shifts to find a more comfortable position, figuring that if he wants to leave, he'll have to do so at night. Ever since the last time he'd jumped out the window with his sylph shoes, someone had always been stationed below. He'd have to find a new way out.

He considers the conversation over. Surely The Wise heard what happened and sent Qifrey there to apologize or something, but apparently he's wrong, because Qifrey doesn't leave. He stays there, avoiding Olruggio's gaze as he bites the inside of his cheek.

"Why did you…" Qifrey starts, unsure, before continuing with more confidence, meeting Olruggio's gaze directly. "Why did you defend me?"

Olruggio looks at him strangely.

"Why wouldn't I? People who badmouth others need to know that it's not right to act that way."

"But you got hurt." Qifrey looks down at his bandaged arms, which are undoubtedly the worst part of his body by far. However, the only things he got out of the fight are the purple eye and a few scratches here and there, although Qifrey doesn’t need to know that.

Olruggio forces a laugh, trying to lighten the mood, just because Qifrey looks like a kicked puppy.

"This is nothing, in fact, it barely hurts at all. You should see the other guy. I’m pretty sure he is way worse than I am." He grins, but it dies quickly when Qifrey's expression remains unchanged.

Qifrey doesn’t take the offered olive branch to let the matter go, choosing to glare at him instead.

"Don't bother doing it next time. It’s useless and I'm used to what they say now, anyway."

"Well, that doesn't make it any better," he argues, his own voice rising slightly with stubborn refusal. "And it certainly doesn't mean you have to put up with it."

"Either way, it's not your business." Qifrey's tone is clipped, sharp as a blade.

“It is if I want it to be.”

Qifrey scoffs, rolling his eyes in a way that's far too dramatic for someone his age. "You can't just decide things are your business. That's not how it works."

"Yes I can?" He crosses his arms, the perfect example of defiance. "Watch me. I'm deciding right now. This is my business. There. Done."

"You're so stupid," Qifrey mutters, looking away, scowl still in place.

"Well, you're stupider!" Olruggio shoots back, because he doesn’t really want to be mean to the boy next to him, so that's the best he can come up with. "You just let people say mean stuff about you and don't even fight back! That's like—that's like—" He fumbles for the right words, his face scrunching up in concentration. "That's like letting someone steal your lunch and just sitting there hungry!"

"That's not the same thing at all!"

"It is too! You're just too dumb to see it!"

"I am the dumb one? You are the one who picks fights with people twice your size!"

"They weren't twice my size,” he stubbornly fires back, rolling his eyes, “one of them was maybe a head taller, tops!"

“A head taller is still a lot when you're as short as you are!" Qifrey shoots back.

He gasps at that, genuinely offended. How dare he. "I am NOT short! You're only saying that because you've run out of arguments!"

Olruggio thinks Qifrey is about to say something else back, kind of wants him to, for some reason (maybe he did hit his head in the fight), but instead, his mouth snaps shut as he looks to the ceiling as if Olruggio was the worse thing he had to deal with in the last few years.

Before Olruggio can get another word in, Qifrey gets up and turns on his heel, robes swishing behind him as he strides to the door. He pulls it open with a sharp motion, but pauses in the threshold. Over his shoulder, he casts one last look back.

"Don't do it again. I mean it."

Then the door slams shut with enough force to rattle the shelves along the wall.

Left with nothing but silence, Olruggio grimaces up at the ceiling, already resigning himself to the thought that if Qifrey hadn't wanted to be friends before, he certainly wouldn't want anything to do with him now.

Shame, he thought they were alike, in some ways. Both outcasts in different ways, sharing a similar kind of heartbreak, broken into the same shape. Strangers with the same wound, if you will.

Well. What's done is done, he supposes. And if he's being honest with himself, he'd gladly take another black eye if it meant protecting someone, even if they never asked him to. It is what he is supposed to do, after all.

Imagine his surprise, then, when the next morning he walks into the dining room and finds Qifrey already seated at the table he usually eats at — across from his usual spot, no less. His cheeks are flushed a telling red, and his gaze is fixed somewhere off to the side, stubbornly avoiding Olruggio's.

.

Olruggio is twelve, sleeping on Qifrey’s bed, when he notices people treat him like an adult more often than not. While the other boy curls into himself, making himself as small as possible, Olruggio stays awake, staring at the ceiling with the blanket clutched tightly to his chin.

When he was six, his mother would wake him before the sun had even risen, bustling into his room with too much cheerfulness for someone who barely slept. He'd whine, because even then he'd loved sleeping, but she would just smile and brush his hair back with oh-so-careful fingers. "You're the Star of Ghodrey, love," she'd say. "I'm sure you can do it, right?"

He could do it. He just didn't want to. Not every day, at least. But he got up anyway, and did the same thing for the next few years.

He doesn't know why he remembers such a small detail when he can barely recall the color of his mother's eyes anymore, but the memory stuck to him like a stubborn thorn. It was just hard to listen to other kids his age talk about their days, and realize they didn't have to wake before dawn, didn't have to draw sigil after sigil until their fingers ached. Back then, he'd thought about telling her he wished he could be more like, well, them, but his imagination always conjured the image of her frowning at such a request, so he always put it off for later. And then later never came.

When he was seven, his father brought him to work for the first time. It was too much, too scary, and he was the only child there, which made him spend the entire day stuck to his father's leg, clinging to the only familiar thing in the room, until the man gently pried his arms loose and told Olruggio he should stop being shy, grow up quickly, and learn how witches worked properly.

Again, his father probably never knew the sinking feeling that settled in his chest that day the same way his mother would never know how her requests made him feel. Drawing from reference books and trying to replicate magic in reality were entirely different things, and it terrified him to his core. He stopped hugging his father's leg after that.

Then he was eight, nine, ten — and before anything else, he had always been the Star of Ghodrey, a genius. By the time he was eleven, arriving at the Great Hall with nothing but the clothes on his body, the horrible burns on his arms from botched fire magic, and the sinking feeling of not being enough, he never complained. It didn't feel like he had the right to.

When he was eleven, on another work trip filled with adults he had never seen, traveling to a land he'd never gone to, they stopped in a city for supplies. There, he found a little boy crying. Before he could think better of it, he approached and furtively drew animals made of light to make him smile. Later, one of the oldest witches accompanying them said, "You're too nice, Olruggio. It's going to kill you one day."

The warning struck him as odd, because what is wrong with being kind? And even if it did kill him, he thought, it wouldn't be such a bad way to go. He paid it no mind. Olruggio figured he could use a little more kindness in his life, anyway.

He was a witch. His only job was to bring happiness to those who couldn't use magic themselves, and more than that, he was exceptionally good at it. So yes, he had to put in more effort than anyone else and had to offer gentleness in a world that only wants to eat people raw. That was what he was meant to do.

So, don't get him wrong. He likes being taken seriously, feeling needed and wanted. It feels good, even. But stars, it does make him want to cry a little, sometimes. Because he is a genius, and he is good at what he does, and he is the Star of Ghodrey — but before all of that, he is just achingly twelve, too.

.

Qifrey had walked into the Third Test like a person and walked out like someone else entirely. By the time he returned, he was more distant, quieter, and though Olruggio doubted Qifrey even noticed it in himself, he seemed to be carrying some invisible wound that never quite stopped hurting. Olruggio had tried to pry the truth out of him two, maybe three times, but each attempt ended with Qifrey looking so miserable that he abandoned the effort altogether. In the end, they didn’t talk about it the same way they didn't talk about his arm. Unfortunately, he would only realize, much, much later, when things spiraled beyond control and he could not even notice what were lies and what was the truth anymore, that it was a mistake, because some things are important enough to be spoken aloud, no matter how much they hurt.

As the days bled into weeks and the weeks stretched into months, the list of things they didn't talk about grew longer and heavier between them. There were so many if onlys in his life now.

There were so many lies. And when there weren't lies, there were omissions. And when there weren't omissions, there was simply nothing at all — an emptiness where there used to be warmth and trust. It hadn't always been like this, but maybe this was what growing up meant: the slow accumulation of things left unsaid, of truths swallowed whole and replaced with pretty falsehoods. Qifrey lied about being fine, and Olruggio lied about believing him. Olruggio lied about the state of his arm, and Qifrey looked away, pretending not to see. And isn’t that something? How everyone is so willing, so ready, to lie to the people they claim to love.

In Olruggio's little kingdom of lies, there were also plenty of regrets.

If only he hadn't taught Qifrey how to smile his way out of difficult conversations. If only he had pressed harder for the truth. If only he had been a better friend. If only he hadn't loved Qifrey the way he did, hadn't let those feelings complicate everything, make him hesitant and careful and afraid of pushing too hard. If only he had tried a little more, cared a little louder, loved a little less fearfully. If only, if only, if only.

Once, they had shared everything with each other. Now there was nothing at all where there had once been so much.

He tried to bring it up once, though. Just once, because he was fifteen and tired and sad, and the only friend he had ever truly known was slipping through his fingers no matter how desperately he tried to hold on. They were sitting side by side in the old house he had found in Naakiwan Downs, close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from Qifrey's body but never quite close enough to touch — a fitting metaphor, he would later think, for how their entire relationship had felt over the last few years. Always almost there, but never quite.

"Will you ever tell me what happened to you?"

He wasn't sure what response he had expected, wasn't even sure why he had brought it up at all, knowing full well that Qifrey would most likely never give him a straight answer.

“You need to be more specific, Olly.”

“I mean when you came back from the Tower of Tomes."

The only sign of Qifrey's distress was the way he stopped breathing for a single heartbeat before the sound of his shuttered breath returned. Ah, he thought even before the white-haired witch said anything. He won’t tell me anything again.

Olruggio would be insulted if he wasn’t so tired of it.

"Ah." Qifrey let out a dismissive, breathy sound, waving one hand as if swatting away an insect. "I already told you what happened, didn't I? Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything of help in there."

"Qifrey, I have never once taken you for a fool, so I ask you not to do the same to me." Olruggio's voice came out more frustrated than he had intended. "I know something happened in there, and I know you aren't telling me. All I'm asking is why."

He went quiet for a long moment, his gaze fixed somewhere on the dusty floorboards. At the same time, Olruggio already braced himself for the familiar motion of Qifrey standing up and making his excuses, but, surprisingly, it didn't come.

"Because it wouldn't change anything," he said finally, his voice so small Olruggio almost didn't catch it.

"How can you be so sure?" Olruggio pressed, leaning forward slightly, his heart hammering in his chest. "Maybe if you told me what happened, we could figure something out together. I don't know—we're friends, aren't we?"

The last part came more unsure than he ever wanted it to be.

"Of course we are, Olly." Qifrey finally turned to look at him, and for a moment, his expression was so genuinely confused that Olruggio almost believed him. "What kind of question is that?"

"Well, it doesn't feel like it most of the time." The words tasted bitter and completely unfair on his tongue, but he couldn't take them back. Instead, he opted to avert his eyes. "Not anymore, at least."

Olruggio didn't know what he had expected Qifrey to say to that. A denial, maybe, or a soothing reassurance that everything was fine, that he was imagining things. What he got instead was:

"I can see why you feel that way."

For some reason, Olruggio wished Qifrey had at least had the decency to lie to him and say sorry, even if he didn’t feel like that at all. Hearing him sound so dismissive, as if the distance between them was expected, made him feel far more upset than if Qifrey had shouted in his face.

"And what exactly is that supposed to mean?" His voice cracked slightly on the last word, and he hated himself for it.

Qifrey shrugged. "I just… didn't want to lie to you."

"Right." Olruggio let out a humorless laugh. "Right, because you haven't already done that plenty of times. I don't think another one is going to change anything at this rate, Qifrey."

Qifrey laughed then, and it was the laugh that Olruggio hated — except he didn't really hate it, not exactly, because he had never learned how to hate anything about Qifrey. But he wished he could see it less, that terrible, hollow sound that wasn't genuine at all. He knew what Qifrey sounded like when he was truly happy, and this wasn't it. It hadn't been it for a long time. Sometimes, Olruggio wondered if he would ever hear the real thing again, or if that version of Qifrey had been lost somewhere and would never come back.

"You're sharp, Olly." That was all Qifrey said in the end. He just sat there, his eyes still fixed on the floor, and Olruggio glared at him for a few seconds, because there was no point in glaring at someone who wouldn't look back. Who wouldn't see. Qifrey had his eyes trained on the floorboards, and Olruggio had his eyes trained on Qifrey, and that was how it had always been, wasn't it? One of them reaching, the other pulling away.

Olruggio's hands curl into fists at his sides, his nails digging into his palms. He can feel the words building in his throat, hot and desperate and raw. Please. Please just tell me. Please stop lying to me. Please stop looking at me like I'm someone you have to perform for, and just look at me like you used to. Please let me in. Please let me help. Please, please, please—

But he doesn't say any of that. Instead, he swallows it all down until it sits heavy and sour in his chest, because he knows what will happen if he does say what he wants. Qifrey will smile that smile and laugh that laugh and say something gentle and devastating about how he's fine, really, Olly doesn't need to worry, and then he will find an excuse to leave, and Olruggio will be left standing there with his heart in his hands, wondering what he did wrong.

So he doesn't beg, even if he really wants to. No, he only takes what he is given — which is nothing at all, most of the time — and pretends it is enough. And, well. It doesn’t even matter. By the time morning came, Olruggio found that he couldn't stay upset at Qifrey. It was hard to be angry when he sat beside him in class, his eye bright with focus, when he was so beautiful and tired and good.

And later, so much later, when everything has fallen apart and the lies have multiplied and bred and swallowed everything whole, he will look back at this moment and wonder: what if he had begged anyway? What if he had dropped to his knees and grabbed Qifrey by the shoulders and shaken him until the truth fell out? What if he had refused to accept that hollow laugh as an answer?

He would know, in his heart of hearts, that it probably wouldn't have changed anything. But the need to believe that a better outcome was possible was all he had to keep him going, sometimes.

.

If someone went back in time and told a younger Olruggio that he would one day do anything to keep Qifrey happy, he was sure that boy would have found it amusing. Preposterous, even. And yet, though the idea would sound impossible then, like the kind of claim only fools or the omnipotent dared make, Olruggio would still like to think that some deep and unnamed part of that kid would know it was true, because something deep, deep inside him always seemed to be looking for Qifrey, even if he didn’t know exactly which part it was.

And, well. Olruggio has never been one for fairy tales. He grew up too fast to enjoy them the way children ought to do, trading late nights spent listening to his father’s voice reading aloud for work trips his family insisted he accompany. But Qifrey was fond of them, always tucking one or two between the pages of their reference books, never quite hiding them well enough that Olruggio wouldn't notice.

He used to think it was because Qifrey had been robbed of so much growing up. That it was simply easier for him to slip into stories where bad days were born ugly, where kindness was met with kindness, and where there was always, always a way back to the light. Olruggio never brought it up, though. Didn't want to.

But the point is this: Qifrey loved stories, and because he loved them, Olruggio made sure to pay attention to the ones he shared.

One story in particular, strange at first, stuck with him. It went like this: Orpheus made a deal with death itself to bring his beloved back. He walked through the underworld under one condition: do not look back until she stands in the light. And he almost made it. But he looked back. Of course he looked back, because he loved her. He would not have been Orpheus if he hadn't — he would never have walked that path at all. And Eurydice, when she meets his gaze, is always smiling when Qifrey tells the story, even as she dies a second time. Yet she never found it in her heart to resent him. She utters no complaint against her love, for how could she? What was there to resent except the fact that she had been loved?

One might wonder if she ever told him to let go. One might wonder if he only held on tighter despite it all. One might call Orpheus a poor, stupid man: he had everything, and he lost it all because he could not stop loving her for even a single second.

The story stuck because Olruggio is no better. It frightens him the things he would do for Qifrey. It frightens him even more to consider that his love might bring more harm than good. It frightens him most of all to know that one day, he too might look back, just to find himself standing in the dark, empty-handed, with nothing but a breaking heart and the memory of what he had in his fingertips.

.

His first commission, the one that had earned him the title Olruggio of The Torch, had come from a noble wealthy enough to purchase Ghodrey three times over if he had so desired. The job had been interesting enough, and he had learned a great deal from it, identifying countless points where his own magic could improve. But at the end of the day, it hadn't been as rewarding as he had once hoped.

After that, through the mysterious alchemy of networking, noble after noble began commissioning things from him, some more exorbitant than others, and he accepted each one without complaint. The pay was good, the work was easy enough for him to complete but challenging enough to push him toward becoming a proper witch, and yet it made him sick with a creeping, nameless anxiety that settled in his stomach and refused to leave.

For some reason, the urge to simply be more burned inside him like a fever he couldn't shake.

Olruggio was a pathetic man, at the end of the day. He had been ever since he arrived from Nauz with nothing but nightmares rattling around in his skull. Back then, his city hadn't been able to afford a better witch to send to the Great Hall, and Olruggio hadn't been able to afford being anything less than extraordinary. So he had become the Star of Ghodrey everyone had hoped to see: a prodigy, a miracle, the boy who would make something of himself. And now here he was, making useless trinkets for nobles who could have commissioned anyone else, simply because he needed the money. Stars, he felt sick with himself.

Magic hadn't always felt like this. There had been a time when there was a kid who felt cold and another who smiled with his animals made of light. There had been a sense of wonder, once. He didn't know exactly what he wanted from his life now, but he knew with certainty that it wasn't this.

So he put more work into thinking about what he needed to do to fill that bottomless pit inside him. He lost sleep, ate less, accepted commission after commission in the desperate hope that a breakthrough would come through. He could work through it. He always could. He had to.

In the end, Olruggio's epiphany came to him like this: he was running away from Qifrey. Or rather, he was running away from Qifrey's eye.

It was no secret that his arm was, well, bad, due to how carelessly he had tested his fire magic since childhood. But he had always at least made a half-hearted attempt to hide it under bandages and long sleeves. He knew he wasn't the most handsome person out there, far from it, and he wasn't particularly luxurious or refined either. But even he wanted to look at least decent in front of the boy he had been in love with for the past several years.

However, the burn he had managed to get this time was somehow worse than all the others combined. It made an ugly sight, as if someone had taken a dagger and cut through a painting that was already quite ugly, making it even more deformed. Which had brought him to a quick trip to the hospital in Kalhn, where he now sat on a few steps of a stair with a properly bandaged arm, eating a pastry he had just bought, wondering what in the world he was doing with his life.

His eyes, hazy from exhaustion and pain, eventually drifted to a broken toy in a nearby trash heap. A small wooden horse, its legs splintered and snapped, one eye painted on and the other missing entirely. He wondered, distantly, how many loved objects had to break in order to take care of their people. Then he looked down at his arm, and wondered how much more he could take before he broke too.

A sudden crisis bloomed in his chest. He had never done anything truly worthy of his life, had he? Despite everyone's expectations, Olruggio just ran and ran and ran, just to end up in the same place. What had he really accomplished? What had he given the world that would outlast him? A few flashy trinkets for rich people who didn't need them, that’s what he did. Even though he had the duty to be more since he was born.

Through the haze of his spiraling thoughts, he saw a woman struggling with her groceries. She was young, perhaps a few years older than him, with a child clinging to her skirt and a stack of bags threatening to topple from her arms. She looked tired, the way all mothers looked tired, and she was trying so hard to keep everything together. Olruggio watched her for a moment, before taking a last bite of his meal, and moving.

Quietly, beneath his robes, he drew some sigils on his palm. The magic came easily, naturally, as it always had. He made the bags float slightly, and guided them gently to her doorstep as she walked. She turned, startled, and her face broke into a tired but genuine smile. "Thank you," she said, and the words felt like the most honest thing he had ever heard in a while. When he left, he felt lighter than he had in months.

When he came back to his room, tired and hurting all over, but feeling quite at ease for some reason, it struck him.

There are folk who need help carrying heavy things, he thought. And kids crying because they lost their toys. And winters when people need warmth. And carriages that need rescuing. All wonderful folk who have no money for what he provides, but who would welcome it nonetheless.

He looked down at his bandaged arm and, for the first time in a long time, didn't feel quite so broken.

.

It goes like this: Qifrey leaves.

It happens on a sun-scrubbed morning, the kind that spills butter-yellow across the kitchen tiles and makes the dust motes dance in lazy spirals. Olruggio stands at the window with a cup of cooling tea in his hand, watching Qifrey's silhouette grow smaller and smaller until it is swallowed by the scenery altogether. He watches until there is nothing left to watch, and even then he stands there a moment longer, because some part of him still expects Qifrey to turn around and come back.

But Qifrey does not turn around. Qifrey keeps walking, and Olruggio cannot even muster the energy to be surprised.

After all, Qifrey had been saying goodbye in small, quiet ways for weeks now: cooking every dish Olruggio had ever mentioned loving; asking him to come along on errands with a frequency that eclipsed the past three years combined; and restocking the ink cabinet with meticulous care, row after row of fresh pots, because Olruggio always forgot to buy more until he was buried beneath a mountain of deadlines and the last bottle had run dry.

Qifrey had always known him too well, but Olruggio knew him quite as much, too. That, perhaps, was the cruelest part.

However, Olruggio is not a child clinging to his father’s legs anymore. He has long since learned that wanting something desperately does not make it yours, that loving someone purely does not obligate them to stay. So when the moment comes, he does what he has always done: he smiles. It does not reach his eyes but does not need to, because Qifrey is already looking toward the horizon and not at him. He raises his hand in a wave that says I'll see you soon, even though both of them know it is a lie.

Olruggio doesn’t show how much seeing his best friend leaving completely and utterly guts him.

Then the day ends, as days always do, and Olruggio closes the door and lights the lamp and sits down at his cluttered worktable because the world does not pause for broken hearts.

Still, he wonders.

He wonders how much he could have taken, if he had wanted to, instead of living through giving and giving and giving. If he had pressed harder, held tighter, asked for more than Qifrey was willing to give — would that have changed anything? Would it have made Qifrey look at him differently? Would it have made Qifrey love him back?

Would it have made him stay?

Qifrey leaves, and commissions pile up on his table, and a gold tassel dangles from his hat, and the faint scent of his friend still lingers in the room, never quite fading, and everything is different, and yet everything is the same, and he is being left behind, again.

But, well, he doesn’t care. And if he did care, which he doesn’t, what would change? There weren’t many options available to him. It was either letting go or holding a candle until the wax dripped onto his skin and burned. There was moving on or clinging to a sinking ship until saltwater filled his lungs.

It was simple. Maybe some things simply weren’t meant to be.

But—

He thought about all the things that were never meant to be and yet clawed their way into existence anyway — like a fire in the middle of a snowstorm, like a flower pushing through frozen ground, like a boy from Ghodrey who had no business surviving until now, but had done it anyway.

Qifrey leaves, and Olruggio loves him. Qifrey does not come back, and Olruggio does not wait for him. Only one of these is a lie.

.

The years pass. Olruggio grows older, grows a beard, builds a name for himself — and a few creations he is genuinely proud of, if he does say so himself — then he tries, for the first time in his life, to forget Qifrey.

It goes about as well as can be expected. For a week or two, he manages. Then he spots a book on dragons in a shop window, and his first thought is how much he wishes Qifrey were there, because he always knew more fun facts about those great lumbering lizards than Olruggio could ever count. Yes, the thought alone brings tears to his eyes, but it doesn't feel like swallowing glass anymore. So. Progress.

It would be a lie to say he doesn't want to go after him. He does. But he stifles the urge, because it would be nothing but impulse — and though he has always been deeply flawed, he refuses to go after his friend just out of selfish loneliness alone. Instead, he buys the damned book, makes tea, waits for his arm to heal, and makes sure, for once, to get a good night's sleep.

More than once, lying awake in the dark, he wonders why Qifrey left. Perhaps arrogantly so, a part of him always knew Qifrey loved him back. That love had been real. Olruggio is certain of it, but—

And isn't that exactly it?

Qifrey loves him, but.

.

Somewhere, long ago, a woman who had already shaken hands with death turned to the man who carried her heart in his chest and whispered, "Let me go."

He only curled his fingers more tightly around hers and said, "Never."

.

In the end, Olruggio goes after him.

.

Now that they share an atelier, the small changes in Qifrey are impossible to ignore. Olruggio notices them all, from the way he leaves his boots by the door instead of kicking them off haphazardly, to how he stopped humming while he cooked. But the one that irritates Olruggio the most, is the tea.

Qifrey takes it without sugar now. He never used to.

When they were children, the man would wrinkle his nose at the bitter brew and dump spoonful after spoonful of honey or sugar into his cup until it was more syrup than tea. "It's undrinkable otherwise," he'd declare, and Olruggio would roll his eyes and pass him the sugar bowl without a word.

Now he drinks it black. Bitter. And he doesn’t know what to do with that.

It takes time, getting used to him. But then there are nights like this one, when they lie side by side in the grass, the night sky above them full of stars, and Olruggio remembers that some things haven't changed at all.

Qifrey still points out constellations with the same boyish wonder. He still smiles that same little smile when Olruggio gets one wrong. He still turns his head just so, catching the moonlight in his eyes, and Olruggio finds himself not loving him any less than he did all those years ago.

It makes him think of his father walking out that door knowing he wouldn't come back. It makes him think of his mother, who followed without hesitation. For the longest time, Olruggio couldn't understand it. But now, lying in the grass with Qifrey, watching the slow creep of morning light paint gold across his features, Olruggio thinks he finally gets it.

In moments like this, when the world is quiet and Qifrey is talking softly about some shared memory, Olruggio can almost believe nothing in the world could ever tear them apart. He's an adult, though. He knows better. He knows how fragile this is. So when Qifrey turns his gaze back to the stars, letting out a soft, contented sigh, Olruggio closes his eyes and foolishly tries.

Stars, ancient and cold and countless beyond number, carry this plea for me across the void: do not take him from me too. If you need to take anyone, take me instead. Let him stay. He has apprentices yet to guide, and a world still waiting to be turned over. He has a horizon that still calls his name. But I have nothing except him.

It’s a little tricky to think those words in his mind, not knowing whether he believes anyone is listening — because the only time he saw a witch reaching out no one answered — but Olruggio knows this is his last shot. If Qifrey won’t ask for his help, won’t accept it, and if no matter how hard he tries, he still can’t figure out what’s eating away at him, then Olruggio can only hope the world will treat Qifrey a little more kindly, even if he himself has to be the sacrifice for that to happen.

He couldn't save anyone back then. Can't even help his best friend, but maybe he can still do this one thing.

.

Somewhere out there, a child gasps in awe at the sight of a shooting star. But one has to wonder: would they react the same way if they knew that shooting stars aren’t stars at all, and that their beauty comes from self-destruction? That sometimes, what we find most beautiful is simply something burning up on its way to nowhere?