Work Text:
May I be empty
And open
To receive the light.
May I be empty
And open to receive.
May I be full
And open
To receive the light.
May I be full
And open to receive.
On the nights when Qifrey can't manage to sleep, when the joyless rousing of guilt drowns the lull of his dreams, Qifrey wonders who he was before he slumbered unknowingly in his coffin of rain and wood and schemes.
On the nights when Qifrey can't manage to sleep, his wonderings only wander through a desert yielding neither answers nor relief.
Had he cried, when they took out his eye? Had it pained him? Had it pained them? Did he fight against the seed, or was it planted with relief?
For what had he wanted? For what had toiled? For what had he lived? For what was he living?
Who threaded the past present future of his fate, taunting him, unforgiving?
On the nights when Qifrey can't manage to sleep, he's left to wander in his wonderings until eventually, mercifully, morning dawns in mourning of all he's become and all he'll never be.
Act I - May I be Empty
Morning dawns. Mercifully. Mournfully.
Quadryphons chirp their comely song. The witches of the Downs stir slowly from their sleep.
All except Olruggio and Qifrey.
Olruggio is out cold, warmed by a thick stack of blankets and a haze fogging over the stolen gaps of his memory.
Olruggio knows not the crime he carries in his sleep.
Qifrey bears the weight of this secret alone.
Qifrey, who needs not awaken. For this night, he never slept at all. Where rest should lie, only a hollow, attention-seeking hunger gnaws.
The soft pink light ebbing through the kitchen windows marks only hours after Olruggio’s breath-giving, breath-taking late night confession. Only hours after Qifrey gave in to the temptations of what if and take the risk and anything for him, after he lost himself in the delicacies of skin and limbs and Olruggio told Qifrey he loved him and the tree promptly stole from them what their courage had given.
Qifrey still hears it, the melancholic melody of Olruggio’s late night pleas.
I think of you, Qifrey.
Tell me, Qifrey, tell me honestly, do you think of me?
I want to hear you want this, Qifrey.
You’re beautiful, Qifrey.
Be good for me, Qifrey.
… Because I love you, Qifrey.
Qifrey, please, tell me.
Why won’t you let me help you?
Don’t wreck my room. Wait for me.
Because I love you, Qifrey.
After all he gained and all he lost, Qifrey finds in his grieving that he can stomach nothing at all. Fitting, that only water should stay down for a witch who’s as much plant as he is man.
The sharp pain of an empty stomach is almost forgiving. An embrace, compared to the dull unending ache for Olruggio that still pulses up and down his spine, stirring visions of last night’s whispered commands for more, please, there, first unwanted, then plentiful, then overflowing, until his want turned to hope turned to despair.
He hears the girls stir.
Qifrey forces down a cup of water as he hurries to set the table for breakfast.
He'll let the hunger sit.
Just for a little bit.
Richeh descends first, bedhead untamed. Tetia soon follows. They mumble drowsy greetings of good morning Master Qifrey and what's for breakfast and how did you sleep.
“Good morning, girls,” Qifrey greets with a gentle laugh. “It’s good to see you this morning. We’ve got the usual, and then some.”
Heads turn. Awake, attentive. They harmonize: And then some?
Qifrey’s promise yields awe. The table is rich in offerings. Eggs, fried; bacon, crisp; toast, buttered; marktea, steeping; toppings, plentiful. But the tarts, oh the tarts. They’re a blossom, a bouquet. Their petals steal the show.
“Coco, Agott,” Tetia calls up the stairs, hands cupped around her cheeks in an anguish of delight. “Come down, quick!! Master Qifrey’s set out the most amazing breakfast!”
Coco and Agott soon join the fracas. But their gazes won’t meet. They must have been fighting.
Qifrey will deal with it later.
“Master Qifrey, these tarts are beautiful,” Coco exclaims, the sleep marveled out of her eyes. “These must have taken forever to make.”
“They certainly are beautiful,” Agott agrees. Her voice is reluctant, barely a whisper. “What spell did you use to make them keep their shape?”
Qifrey hands out plates, gestures a small humble wave. “No spell this time. Just precision, and practice. But fret not; it didn’t take long. I had some help last night.”
The girls look at each other in confusion. Did one of them sneak downstairs, undetected?
They answer their unspoken question in silent glances of mutual understanding.
Timidly, hopefully, Richeh asks on behalf of the group: “So if it wasn’t us, that means…”
“Yes,” Qifrey smiles. “Olruggio came back last night. Early from his trip — to all of our surprise.”
A collective cheer fills the Atelier, alongside the clacks and murmurs of food heaped onto plates, onto the table.
The girls eat with the exuberance of hungry questions whose answers must be met. Where did he go? What did he make? Can you pass me the salt? Did he bring us anything? How did you make these tarts so flaky? Can Master Olruggio teach us any new spells? When will he wake?
Qifrey expertly feeds their barrage. North of Kalhn. He made a cooking contraption. Maybe we’ll get one — no, better not get one, we’ve got no room for it. Here’s the salt. He brought himself back safe and sound, and isn’t that the best gift of all? The secret to good crust is cold dough. I make sure the butter’s straight from the ice-seal ice box. You’ll have to ask Olruggio about his new spells when he wakes. I'm not sure when. But we ought to let him sleep in.
Satisfied in their knowledge and their stomachs, the girls gather to clean.
Among the leftovers, a single tart remains. Coco tilts her head to look at Qifrey as she clears plates off of the table.
“Don’t you want one,” Coco insists as she gestures to the last tart.
“No, thank you,” Qifrey too quickly replies. “We need to save one for Olruggio. He’s just returned from a trip, after all.”
Coco nods in understanding. “Well then… We’ll have to leave a note!”
Qifrey smiles. “How thoughtful, Coco. I’ll write it, alright? You girls just finish getting ready.”
“Sure,” Coco agrees. After a beat: “Master Qifrey, Thank you for taking such good care of us. And of Master Olruggio.”
Left unsaid: Take good care of yourself, too.
“That’s my job,” Qifrey reassures. “And it certainly is a rewarding one.”
After the washing and sealing and storing, the girls return to their rooms to gather their belongings.
On the table, the promised note. One which Qifrey hopes is as honest as it is deceitful.
Olly,
The girls and I are out for some practical magic lessons. We should be back by mid-afternoon.
What fun we had last night. That silvernectar wine is something truly spellbinding… Though I regret I didn’t hold back in offering you so much to drink. I hope you’ve recovered, dear friend.
Perhaps we’ve grown too old for this vicious cycle of indulgence and regret and recovery.
More importantly: before we brought out the drinks last night, we were making tarts, remember? I managed to save you some, much to the girls’ chagrin. There’s leftover soup from yesterday in the usual spot, too.
Eat up. Rest up. After your adventures yesterday, plus that lovely soiree long past our bedtime, you’ve been through enough.
See you when we return.
Yours in late night mischief,
Qifrey
He thinks of his secrets and his half-truths and the shadows left in their wake: the partially-emptied bottle of wine placed consciously, conspicuously on the counter. The hickeys on his thighs bruising under the cover of his clothes. The confessions he can relive only in the safety of his memory.
Qifrey feels the hot prickling of tears welling. Of regret spilling. His shoulder aches.
He thinks desperately of a distraction.
Not feeding his hunger — not yet, not after adding the letter and the bottle and their undeniable deception to his long list of sins. An incubator made for bark and blood to mix has no right to feast upon anything, anyways.
Feeding the girls’ curiosity will suffice for now. A field trip implies the cold. The windchill. The sting of the late fall breeze. Enough sensation to freeze the want crawling like ants from root to rib to heart.
Yes. A field trip will do.
The girls and Qifrey set out to greet the Downs.
Olruggio of his bed, meanwhile, finally begins his reluctant return to the world of the waking, groggy and hungover and hungry.
The girls laugh and they trek and they draw and they squabble, not again Tetia, you must let this joke go.
Qifrey marvels at their growth. At the speed with which they pick up the pen. At their ease, and how they tease each other, not enough to hurt but enough to motivate, to get them to try harder, to keep going, until they figure out the trick to their spell and jump and sigh with the relief of I did it.
Midway through Agott’s display of her mastery over mist, Qifrey falters.
Almost imperceptible, he thought.
But his students are clever, and they catch Qifrey’s knees surrendering, his heart falling into his hands, his ribs dropping into his stomach, his teeth grinding in pain, and they’re unconvinced by his lies that he’s just reacting to the sudden misty cold that envelopes them.
In an instant, Tetia’s cushioned him in a sand cloud and Agott’s running to find Olruggio and Coco joins Richeh to comfort him with reassurances that it’s okay, it’s okay, help will be here soon, and they’re here with him, and he’s safe, and he shouldn’t worry, and he’ll get well soon.
The comfort of the sand cloud disintegrates, replaced by a familiar sense of weightlessness, of arms underneath him, of the warmth of Olruggio’s chest against his head and the sound of a beating heart he's never stopped yearning to know.
He still smells like matches, Qifrey senses as he fades into exhaustion.
Just out of reach, a table. Set for six. Stacked with delicate serving dishes overflowing with bread pudding and quartz sugar jellies and crème bruleés and carapace buns and dried fruits and gelatinous custards.
Layered in between the sweets, a gambit of desires: long-sought children’s books plucked from the Tower of Tomes. Gently glowing tea candles, enough to make a maiden swoon. Practiced spells from his students, confident in their strokes. A blindfold, tucked neatly over a perennial vial of tears.
The table beckons. It beckons. And Qifrey reaches for it and it beckons and yet —
Qifrey’s stuck, immobile, rooted steps away from reaching its delicacies. His grasping gives way to ground collapsing. He’s falling again, he’s sinking again, he’s drowning again, too far from the girls to be spotted and too tainted by his betrayals to be seen. He's surrounded only by the blue-black brine of ocean, weighed down by his boots and his cloak and his cap.
The delicate black ribbon of his pact swirls mockeries around him. He’s wrapped in the tangle of his exchanged tassel, choked by the promises he fails to keep.
Above, a light. Soft, shimmering, almost bright.
It calls.
Qifrey.
Qifrey.
Qifrey –
Qifrey wakes to the heat of a flaming hearth and the smell of something delicious on the stove and apprentices eager to see him well.
Olruggio hovers over him, whispering Qifrey's name like an incantation, and Qifrey remembers Olly loves him while Olruggio's eyes are full of worry and his hands are a touch away from turning sharp the dull pain in between Qifrey’s ribs.
He cannot know that I know. He does not love me he cannot love me he does not —
Olruggio notices Qifrey’s stirs. He smiles, and he's a light. Soft, shimmering, more than bright.
Qifrey winces. Presses into his temple above the ghost of his right eye. Pretends not to notice the sinking ship lit aflame in his ribcage.
“Qifrey,” Olruggio sighs with a smile of relief. His eyes crinkle and though Qifrey's without his glasses he knows it's the most beautiful sight in the Downs. “Thank goodness you’re awake. We were so worried. What happened?"
“I’m… I’m not sure,” Qifrey lies. “I just need some hot water, and a few minutes to collect myself. "Could you please pass me my glasses? I’ll put them on, and drink something, and the girls and I can soon get back to our lesson."
Qifrey swallows the betrayal of his hoarse, scared voice and his cravings for the sweet-sticky sap of honeytree and rich melting of fatty duck meat. He buries his cravings down to the pit of his navel along with his countless other crimes and carefully, confidently sits up and puts his glasses on.
“See? I’m fine,” he smiles.
His face is pale.
His lenses only cover so much.
He senses he's not fooling anyone.
The girls all make eye contact. They say silently something that Qifrey is on the verge of deciphering.
It seems, if nothing else, that Coco and Agott have made up.
Richeh carefully brings over a mug of something steaming. The others cheer her on with hopeful nods. “We had already heated some water. So we saved some for you. And Coco added a slice of green prism lemon,” she nods. “Your favorite.”
A warm wonderful terrible flood of saccharine joy pulses along Qifrey's spine. He thanks Richeh. Looks at each of the others. Nods in thanks to them all. He savors the acrid hint of the water's lemon tinted memories and washes down the torrent of pride and sorrow digging into his bones.
“You don’t have to worry about dinner, by the way,” Olruggio comments, as casually as though he were noting a passing cloud. “It’s done."
Qifrey coughs up a storm. “Dinner is done?" He looks out the window in a hurry. "No — wait — what time is it?”
“Don’t panic," Olruggio consoles. "It’s a bit early to finish dinner — not yet sunset. But cooking's a practical magic lesson, right?"
Olruggio gestures an arm towards the kitchen counter and the girls' proud labor. "We made quadryphon noodle soup. The noodles are homemade." He laughs, softly, equally proud and humble. "I can’t say the same for the poultry, but it’s fresh, and it’s good, and you should have some.”
Qifrey senses he's making a face often reserved for Beldaruit. “.... I don’t think I can stomach something so…” Nutritious. Helpful.
Good.
"… Filling. At least, not yet.”
Tetia steps forward. Bravely and tepidly responds. “But… it's delicious. Coco even taught us all how to chop big bunches of sword carrots into smaller straighter slices than we were managing — ”
“That’s okay, Tetia," Coco consoles. She turns to her teacher. "Master Qifrey, if you can't eat it, we'll understand.”
There’s something about Coco's smile — sad, knowing, holding back — that prods Qifrey in the tender spot left vulnerable to his students, and he sees in their eyes their sadness, their want to be seen and to see his satisfaction, and it’s so frail and familiar that he can’t help but relinquish.
“What kind of teacher lets perfectly good food go to waste? I can’t eat much, but a small serving should do just fine.”
They cheer. It’s a chorus that never gets old.
Agott carries to Qifrey a small bowl with a noticeably even ratio of vegetables to noodles to protein to soup. “I ladled an ideal serving for you, Master Qifrey.”
“You really did, Agott. Thank you.”
With the pressure of eyes on him, Qifrey savors a slow, careful sip. He suffers every spoonful under the hopeful watchful eyes of his household. He silently reminds himself that he doesn't deserve this meal under the guise of his well-rehearsed smile.
He returns the bowl to Olruggio when he finishes. Looks at the girls with earnest praise. “Delicious. Really, truly, splendid. Thank you, each of you.”
The girls glow. It was our pleasure, Master Qifrey. We're glad you liked it. We're glad you're better.
Finally, he meets Olruggio’s gaze and lets it linger. "Thank you, too."
Olruggio looks away, his cheeks reddening, his hand rubbing the tender vertebrae where neck and back meet.
"Don't mention it."
The gray skies melt to yellow and orange and the girls return to their rooms for evening studying.
Olruggio fusses over Qifrey until satisfied he'd survive the night. What do you mean you just 'fainted because of the misty cold.' That's some nonsense, and you and I both know it. Goodness, even the girls know it. Don't you know how worried I was?
And then, as certain as the sunset, Olruggio asks Qifrey the question he most dreads.
“Qifrey, What's really going on?"
Nausea kicks Qifrey like he’s carrying new life. His throat tastes briefly like bile.
"I'm fine, Olly. Really." He searches through the excuses lined up in the barracks of his defenses. "You know how exhausting a trip to the Great Hall can be. And this last one… it was certainly a challenge. I must still be recovering. I suppose I pushed myself too hard in the meantime."
Miraculously, Olruggio grabs on to the grain of truth. He runs his hands through his hair in frustration."You? Qifrey? Pushed yourself too hard? Stars. Breaking news." He pauses. Softens. "I'm glad to hear you say it."
Qifrey smiles with the relinquished guilt of the condemned. "Some truths can't be avoided.” He musters as much feigned confidence as he's learned to master. "I imagine you have more work to do tonight. You spent your afternoon taking care of me and the girls. Why not work for a bit, and I'll rest for a bit, and we can continue the conversation over an evening drink."
Olruggio's brows furrow. He studies Qifrey. With a heavy sigh, "Fine. But you better rest. If the girls tell me tomorrow that they've found you fretting over something or other, I'm abandoning my commissions to be on permanent watch over you for the rest of the week. Deal?"
"Deal."
Mercifully, Olruggio returns to his workshop.
Nausea kicks Qifrey again, and he all but celebrates his reunion with the void in his bathroom. His body is begging to return to the awful welcome wonderful feeling of emptiness in his stomach.
He heaves.
He pictures Agott toiling over ratios carefully considered for a soup made just for him.
He breathes.
He can't get the image of Agott and Coco and Tetia and Richeh caring for him out of his head. Do they see him as worthy, deserving, of food of faith of salvation? Has he really done enough to warrant their loving attention, after plucking them from their unwanting homes?
Does it even matter: for what kind of teacher would he be if he hurled their work into the literal void?
He breathes. Rinses his mouth out with warmed water. Wills the meager bites of his meal to stay.
The distaste in Qifrey's mouth melts into want as he thinks of Olruggio, who supervised the making of the meal he so reluctantly savored. He thinks of Olly's worried sighs, of the twilight of relief that lit his eyes before the sunset. He thinks of Olruggio's gentleness. Of the caress with which Olruggio had placed his mouth on Qifrey's hands. Of Olruggio's hands in his mouth. Of hands grazing his navel. Of hands underneath fabric, over skin, beckoning him to come.
Qifrey rummages through the cupboard for a spare jar of lotion. He whispers a prayer of forgiveness as he settles in for a brief moment of release. This time, he has the wisdom not to whisper Olruggio's name. But Qifrey still feels the ghost of Olly's touch and hears the hunger in Olly's voice commanding him to be good for me and still wants for him all the same, and his body instinctively responds, going, going, releasing silent breathy sighs of there, fuck, yes, and he finishes with a shameful payoff to the memory of Olruggio kissing him whispering I love you, gone as ephemerally as a bottle of spirits choked down too quickly to savor.
He can quell but can't satiate the endless appetite to touch taste graze caress melt into Olruggio. There's too much proven risk and too much history buried beyond their collective reach.
A tiny tinny reminder catches his attention.
Coco's voice, a hope, confident in Qifrey's own teaching that anything she can't do, she'll turn into something she can.
That's it.
The table out of reach. The plates. The feast.
Qifrey's intermediary to affection, and to relief.
Qifrey washes up and quietly descends to Olruggio's workshop.
"Olly," he knocks. "Are you hungry?"
Intermission
The first meal Qifrey ever cooked may as well have been digestible poison.
Back then, eating was no more than another chore. Not yet an act of resistance, or one to which he'd grown resistant.
On the rocky forested riverbank, he'd focused more on his freedom and on Olruggio's company than on any recipe.
The result of their sad stilled stew spoke for itself, unapologetic in all it left to be desired.
Cooking well, at first, was no more than a command. A gentle tease from Olruggio to do it again, only better. And so they did, and Qifrey swallowed the shame of wasting perfectly fine food that came from someplace unknown and murky in his non-existent memories as he wiped the cooking pot's slate as clean as his own, and started again.
Cooking well, at first, required full focus. Qifrey gave tender attention to the recipe's steps in their described order. Fried and seasoned and cooled and sieved and sprinkled and simmered, equally doubtful of his skill as of their possible success.
Cooking well, at first, surprised Qifrey as they emerged victorious, enamored, unscathed by the work and by the quieted quickening drumbeat of time. In eating under the stars and over the river and feeling more than full for the first time he could remember, life's zest awoke on Qifrey's tongue. He didn't care to identify whether it was the recipe or Olly or the chopping or the chewing — he knew only that he felt alive, only better.
And thus, cooking became an act on par with running away. An act which could enable Qifrey, through focus and taste and good company, to escape from his inevitable reality.
The night Qifrey first cooked, and first cooked well, carries with it the foreboding faint smells of the forest's delicate earthly decay.
But mostly, this night smelled of stew and stars and river, smoky and endless and fulfilling.
This night, in retrospect, was a life changing night.
Act II: May I Be Full
Olruggio loves watching Qifrey cook. He's deliriously handsome in his veil of a shirt and the plastered defenses that Qifrey wears to wear down others' worries melts away when he's in command of the kitchen. All that's left is his focus, his intention, his precision with a knife and with his hands and with his time.
Those hands: calloused, skilled, quick. A marvel. Olruggio knows better than to entertain visions of Qifrey kneading his skin, warming his way across neck back hips —
"Alright, Qifrey. Tell me. What are we working with tonight?"
Olruggio is admittedly aghast they've reunited in the kitchen, after Qifrey's fainting and less-than-believable recovery. But as night wrapped its gentle arms around the Atelier, Qifrey seemed, well, recovered, and if time together would further perk him up then Olruggio was happy to oblige.
He's always happy to oblige.
Qifrey had insisted he make something just for Olruggio, though Olruggio contended it's not necessary, all he did was supervise the girls, he's done it before and he'll do it again.
But Qifrey coaxed the want out of his gruff shell with a perfectly toned appeal of please, let me do this for you, and when Olruggio's ears turned red in response he relented and choked it up to the maleficent voices of hunger coaxing him to eat — even if what he wants is an end to the insatiable hunger for Qifrey that sets a hurricane in motion through his body.
Qifrey replies to Olruggio's request to know what he's cooking with a teasing it won't be a surprise if I tell you, Olly. Do I need to cover your eyes, and a wink and a smile and an offhand we must have a blindfold around here, if you like.
"I'm happy watching. I'll figure it out," Olruggio saves. A familiar grainy feeling tugs above his temple. He ignores it, as he does with all of the periodic fogs that float above his grasp.
Besides, he has a more important task at hand. Watching Qifrey command the kitchen is enlightening and ephemeral and enchanting. Olruggio's an audience of one for a magician at the peak of his routine. He can't look away — all the more because he knows the magician has a trick up his sleeve.
How can Qifrey slice so many differently-sized vegetables so quickly? They've been living together and cooking together for years, yet Qifrey's talents in the kitchen have grown exponentially faster than Olruggio's.
Did Qifrey sneak away to culinary school while Olruggio wasn't looking?
When could he not have been looking?
The question stumbles out of Olruggio's mouth before he can catch its fall: "Say, Qifrey, when did you learn to cook like this, anyways?"
Qifrey looks up from his dicing. The grounded grace of his movements continues.
"Remember when we were kids, and we tried to make a stew in the woods?"
A faint accessible memory appears, like an itch Olruggio can finally scratch. "Vaguely…"
Qifrey's eyes focus in with an intensity that turns Olruggio into melted sugar, heated and slowed and simmering.
The cutting knife in Qifrey's right hand reflects a steeled light as he gestures, "well, I never forgot. We made fun of each other for ages at how terribly we'd blundered such a simple recipe." His voice lowers. "I learned as much as I needed for my ego to recover."
Qifrey puts the knife down. His movements slow. He's a snowfall suspended in time. He says, soft and tender as a suitor's whisper, "In a way, cooking became my secret pentacle of proving."
"Oh, Qifrey," Olruggio replies. His voice sticks in his throat like heated honey. He wants so badly to transfer every vial full of admiration that beats through his body, lined up neatly for Qifrey's taking. "You have nothing to prove."
Qifrey looks at him again in that sad far off way that tells Olruggio Qifrey's smiles may have dissolved but his secrets stay solid behind an icy line that he will never cross. No matter how many hundreds of warming spells he draws.
He remembers advice he heard years ago from a mentor, though he no longer remembers if it was his professor or an uncle or a bartender.
When a table mate has finished their food and a few glasses of good wine, that's the time to bring out a challenge, or a question, or a favor.
"So," Olruggio prods with a mischievous grin, "when we marauded the markets of the Great Hall, you had a plan beyond being a nuisance all along?"
Qifrey smiles fondly, and Olruggio can see that he's been transported back to the memories of afternoons spent sneaking around the Great Hall's high arches, ducking into alcoves, sending disarming smiles to stall workers, marveling at the pastries and buns and thornbark reveries.
"I may or may not have been studying the sellers' secrets."
"Suspicious, Qifrey," Olruggio teases.
"It's not like they would take me on as their apprentice!"
They argue about the best vendor of the market — Cottla's finger food booth versus Melodela's fruit and juice stand — and poke fun at the memories of Olruggio charming Melodela into receiving free servings of willowgrape, and recall fondly the ease of their youth as aged witches tend to do.
The hurricane stirring within the shores of Olruggio's abdomen slowly starts to settle.
He'll get closer to Qifrey's secrets. For tonight, all there is to do is watch, and wait, and want.
In the comfortable rhythm of laughing and stirring and roasting, Qifrey feels before he hears crumbled confessions spilling out.
“Making good food was hard, in the beginning. I burned so many chrysanthonions. You must remember that terrible charred smoke wafting through the frames of our young atelier.”
Olruggio smirks. “Now that you remind me…”
But Qifrey's been bothered, unsettled, since Olruggio first asked him when he learned to cook.
"Olly," he presses, "you reminisce as though you're not a full part of this equation. Were you not there for these moments?"
Beneath his question, a fear. Have I stolen these memories from you, too?
Olruggio waves his hand in embarrassment. "Of course. But present for part of a journey doesn’t mean present for all of it. I guess I just feel… Nostalgic.”
Nostalgic. Qifrey rolls the word around on his tongue. It tastes so different than in its previous context. Sweeter, with a dash of curiosity.
Qifrey dips the edge of a wooden spoon into one of many sauces on the stove. He hands the offering to Olruggio, who takes a tentative taste.
“Stars, Qifrey. How did you — I mean, that’s —”
“Good, right? Great Hall style Genovese. But just wait. There’s a twist.”
“Everything you make is like magic,” Olruggio admits. Earnest, loving, tender. “No twist needed. There’s actual magic, but…”
Qifrey blushes, looks away.
“So, speaking of surprises," Olruggio saves, "I sure did overdo it last night. I can’t believe I downed enough alcohol to miss your departure today. Thanks for the tarts. They were great.”
Something in Qifrey turns rancid, like gem tomatoes sat too long on the counter.
He studies his melange, sets it aside, starts slicing in its place something dried that smells divine.
Noticeably, he pauses.
"I’m sorry, Olly.”
“For what? Letting me drink too much?”
“Yes — No — I mean —"
"It’s not on you."
Qifrey continues to avert Olruggio’s gaze, preoccupied now with the stretching and starching of dough.
"I'm not mad at you," Olruggio reassures. "I'm just… disappointed that my body can’t take what it used to.”
Qifrey goes quiet, full of unkempt shame.
“I understand," Qifrey replies, gaze to a floured counter as he kneads and cuts an eggy dough into short thin rolled slices. He throws the slices into a pot of boiling water alongside an apologetic look in Olruggio's direction. "I really do."
Olruggio strokes his chin. “We’re not as young as we used to be."
“I suppose not. But I want to believe we're growing young in our old age, Olly. Still risky. Still hungry. Still curious."
Olruggio smirks. His eyes crave answers.
“Curious, huh? What do you want to learn, mister-professor-of-four-marvelous-apprentices?”
Qifrey chuckles, runs through his list of yet unanswered questions. Mentally marks which are safe, which are sacrilege.
“Hm… How long can a bottle of open willowgrape sit before it turns sour? What will it take for Easthies to get the stick out of his back?"
He looks out the window, at the full moon and the sprinkling of stars above. Briefly inspired, briefly unafraid, he looks back at Olly. "How many more marvelous nights will we get to spend together, cooking side by side?”
Olruggio leans back in his seat with a relaxed smile. “Easy answers, Qifrey. Two days to two weeks, depending on how humid it is. Nothing will ever get the stick out of Easthies’ back," he asserts with a heavy laugh. "And we can have as many more nights like this as we like." He's looking, too, at the sprinkling of stars visible through the kitchen window. "The night is young, and I suppose that all things considered, you're right: so are we.”
They smile at each other, affections suspended in platonic disbelief.
"Our midnight snack is almost ready, Olly. Close your eyes, would you please.”
Olruggio obliges. Smells before he can see the marvels plated in front of him.
Qifrey invites Olruggio to open his eyes, gestures proudly to the dishes on the table. Our appetizer: a tasting of basiwilt baked fuzzbergine. To be followed by a generous serving of Great Hall style Genovese, topped with chopped sun dried gem tomatoes. And for dessert: grilled mountain apples drizzled with a glaze of wood sorrel and willowgrape.
Olruggio stares for a few beats too long at the dishes in front of him. Qifrey reddens with worry that his penance reads as overcompensation.
“This is… way more than a snack, Qifrey. How did you make this in the short time we’ve been chatting together?”
Qifrey shrugs with a proud guilty smirk. “We witches have our ways.”
Olruggio investigates the pond of plates set in front of him. "Where should I even start?”
“One usually begins with the appetizer."
Olruggio takes a sheepish bite. With his eyes closed, his focus garnished, he looks captured, enraptured by the fervor of first flavors.
Olruggio slowly blinks his eyes open. “I know custom says I should finish this before moving on, but if this is just the starter, I must try the main.”
“Who am I to keep a man from what he wants," Qifrey says in a way that's grateful and sad and knowing and that would have stopped Olruggio in his tracks if he weren't so focused on his meal.
“That’s right,” Olruggio agrees. “I’m glad you understand.”
His smiles of agreement turn to downright headiness as he savors every bite. Slowly. Adoringly.
“Qifrey,” Olruggio all but commands, eyes locked onto their target. “Are you not going to eat this? It’s good. Really, really good.”
“I’m fine,” Qifrey assures, “but I’m glad you like it so much.”
“Nonsense, Qifrey.”
Olruggio grumbles as he gets up from his seat. “You’ve barely eaten today, and this food is good, and you’re going to eat.”
“But I’m not —”
“I don’t care if you tell me you’re not hungry. A witch has got to eat. So sit, and eat, and keep me company.”
“But I —"
Olruggio sets his eyes on Qifrey with earnest intensity.
“Do you need me to force you? Because I can, you know."
Qifrey feels dizzy with deja vu. Hunger radiates up his throat, acute for food and chronic for touch.
His face runs measured, calculated.
Unabashed, Qifrey finds a seat next to Olruggio. His next question is a challenge, lavish in its craving.
"Would you force me, Olly? Would you really?"
Their legs touch. Olruggio retracts. "I —"
Qifrey reaches over and across Olruggio's arm. Grabs his fork, twists onto it a taste off of a plate. He places the fork in Olruggio's hand, calm and expectant as the open sea.
Olruggio's face ears neck burn red. He sees only white and smoke and silver. He carefully brings the full fork Qifrey's lips. They part in welcome invitation.
Qifrey smiles, victorious, as he moves back his bite and thoughtfully chews and confidently swallows.
"You're right," Qifrey concedes. He brushes a spot of sauce from the edge of his bottom lip. Olruggio follows his fingers' graceful movements with a half-hidden swallow. "That was quite good."
Olruggio is still holding the fork. He's still holding the fork, and his eyes are set on Qifrey's lips, and his words are too clumsy to command. They fall out in a misshapen ask. "So — you'll eat?"
"For you, Olly, it's the least I can do."
Qifrey relishes the sauces that dissolve on his tongue and chews through the softened husks of seasonings and savors the juices of the fruit he swallows.
And despite or because of the careful balance of emptiness vacillating in his stomach, he's satiated. Life's zest has awakened on his tongue. Through their time at the table, they've quieted the quickening drumbeat of time and, however briefly, whether because of the food or the company, Qifrey feels alive again. Only better.
“Well, since you downed all that food,” Olruggio teases, “what do you say we top the night off with the rest of that silvernectar wine from last night?”
“That’s… Not a bad idea,” Qifrey agrees.
He brings over the half-emptied bottle and hides the fading remnants of guilt behind his glasses' shaded lens.
They toast to each other with one glass and down a second and cut themselves off at a reasonable hour, arguing about improvements to recipes and changes to lessons and details of their past and possibilities of their present.
Qifrey is careful not to bring up their future.
As they clean and part ways for the evening, Qifrey pretends not to notice the lingering of Olruggio’s gaze, or the reddened tips of his ears, or the comely wrinkles around his eyes when he smiles.
“Goodnight, Qifrey.”
“Goodnight, Olly.”
Olruggio hesitates at the foot of the kitchen door. He grabs Qifrey where wrist and palm meet.
His breath smells like wine and like want.
“Qifrey, I — I have to ask.”
Qifrey freezes. He knows that Olly loves him, and that he cannot know he knows, but he must let Olruggio ask his question lest his suspicions grow.
“What is it, Olly?”
Olruggio’s eyes study Qifrey more intently than his drunken state would otherwise imply. Qifrey can feel Olly’s gaze on his temple his throat his eyes his jaw and Olly starts to say something and then swallows his words and sighs, resigned. Looks up at Qifrey with a sheepish grin.
"Let’s do this again?”
Qifrey smiles. Satiated, sleepy, loving, careless. He can feel Olruggio's exhales against his neck. Warmth travels down his throat. He leans his cheek towards Olruggio's until he’s close enough to whisper. Until the distance between them is as fragile as the top of a flamed brulee, a touch away from cracking.
“As many times as you’d like, Olly.” He can hear Olruggio’s breath hitch against his own as he continues, “as many times as you'll let me."
Olrggio’s grip on Qifrey’s wrists loosens. He nods, deal, in warm blushing clumsy satisfaction. He lets go of Qifrey — slowly, achingly — and bids a final farewell, and makes his way back to his workshop.
Qifrey's gaze follows Olruggio's stumbling return until he’s blurry through the sparse givings of the kitchen door's window.
Slowly, achingly, full of wine and full of want, Qifrey ascends to his room and finally readies for a fit of sorely needed rest.
In the seconds surrounding him before he sleeps, Qifrey wonders who he was, before he woke in the coffin. Maybe a boy with a family. Maybe just a mother. Or just a brother. Or maybe nobody at all. Maybe his home was only the caress of the wind, or the whistle of the leaves, or the soft thump of the ground beneath his feet.
Maybe it matters, who he once was.
And maybe it matters not at all. Maybe none of who he was matters because now he has them, his girls and his oldest friend who loves him and with whom he's promised to grow old, and they laugh and they work and they study and they toil and they grow, and his garden is plentiful and the harvest will come.
It will come.
Regardless of who he once was.
Regardless of what he'll become.
The harvest will come.
It will come, and they will feast, and his sins will be empty and his stomach will be full and he will be open to the light, open to his light, ready to receive.