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English
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Part 3 of Mama Duck Qifrey, and his husband, and their Ducklings
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2026-04-11
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2,887
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1/1
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Such a Sap

Summary:

after the events of chapter 93, Qifrey seeks out Master Beldaruit to ask about what he should... do, about what he believes is a doomed relationship.. several misunderstandings occur in rapid succession.

[aka: Qifrey calls Beldaruit dad, ruins Olly's sleep schedule even further, and doesn't actually get any answers]

Notes:

sometimes i think about going back to my ex, because she bought and brought me a coffee on my birthday despite quite vocally despising my intake of it

it's hard to remember that i broke things off for a reason sometimes

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

“Master Beldaruit…?”

It's almost funny, how quickly sleep slips through the Wise in Teaching's fingers when that voice drifts through his darkened room.

Soft and hesitant and...

Qifrey.. he was not a loud boy, not by any typical stretch of the word. He wasn't the type to shout, unless he was startled or afraid [and didn't that sound, wrought by his own hand, just haunt Beldaruit as of late], nor was he the type to indulge in chatter.

Which- believe him, he'd attempted more times than he could bear to count...

But he never sounded quite so meek either.

Maybe he was just at that age, where talking to the man who... er.. raised would be a rather presumptious to say, now wouldn't it? Taught, perhaps? Hm..

Ah, regardless of his title- that is, whichever one his dear ward would assign him- Qifrey was at the age where such a thing was.. well embarrassing, so to speak. Beldaruit could not possibly fathom why, but.. he couldn't find it in him to begrudge Qifrey this one normalcy either.

Nor, it seems, could he begrudge his boy the comfort of seeking him out so late. Something he hasn't done since.. since he had no name to be begrudged for, really.

Beldaruit pushes himself up to sitting, just as the skittish patter of unsocked feet balk beside the single lit candle on the cluttered table beside his bed. If only he knew the thing only stayed lit for his haphazard visits.. things of which were not nearly as covert as he so hopefully believed.

If only he knew that he was the only soul who could visit him this late, without any risk of his ire.

...how terribly soft-hearted the Wise has become, in just these scant few years. What would Vinanna say?

"I.. I didn't mean to wake you," Qifrey whispers, clearly fraught for.. some reason or another. Surely not because, even after all this time, he still expected reprimand for such actions?

The paper held in his palms- the spell of a single, puttering ball of light- begins to crumple in his slowly balling fists.

What else is a mentor to do but pry it free?

"You did not," he assures softly, ever so so careful yet not to brush his skin as he coaxes away the tearing page. For what it's worth, his ward lets it go fairly easily, even if he doesn't quite look convinced.

His hands fall to clutching at his sleep skirt instead- and curiously, it is the one he wears to bed. Beldaruit figured, for sure, he'd be out sneaking around with that boy of his at this hour.. as they so often were. Olruggio, if memory serves, though it was truly quite impossible to forget.

They'd seemed glued to each other ever since the Knights had caught them fighting.

He's not my friend... sure.. sure.

Impossible fondness, one he thought he could truly only feel for magic, beads under his collar like finery. Qifrey really has come such a long way since.. hm...

"What troubles you so?" Beldaruit finally broaches, when it becomes clear that Qifrey will not.

He even turns his eyes down to the seal in his hand, just to take any possible pressure to answer off the boy. And it's not... it's not his apprentice's best work, it's shaky and smudged in ways it hasn't been since the Third Wise showed him how to grip his wand with the proper hand.

It's a rush job, just meant to last long enough to get here- he'd wager.

A rush job, from a frightened child who could easily the confuse the dark walls of his room for.. perhaps the walls of something much less safe.

So it's almost terrifyingly easy to set it to the side, and let it putter in tandem with the candle dying beside him, to reach out for his.. ward, instead. It's easy to brush through his fringe and lay his thumb over his cheek.

"Did you have a bad dream?"

Qifrey, predictably, flinches at the initial contact- and makes as if to pull back, while he gives no verbal answer.

Beldaruit would let him should he so truly want to, as he always does.. it's become their standard, their expected, really. Truly.

Beldaruit would offer it, light and undemanding, and his boy would allow it for all of a mere second before attempting to skitter off elsewhere. Attempting, is the operative word here... last time that was allowed to occur, he got into a fight with one of Vinanna's apprentices..

No, it was better if someone was with him- lest he succumb to a wrong turn [again], or a slinging fist [...again.]

He expects much the same this time around, before rough, scarred skin bumps against the pad of Beldaruit's thumb- just enough to startle him back into the present and find... oh.

Oh... sweet child..

..and find Qifrey leaning in to his palm, instead of batting it away. It's a shuddery thing, shy and wrought with hiccuping breath, and it's a little desperate too, but happening nonetheless. Selfishly maybe, the Third Wise can't help but find the motion immensely nice- this nuzzle of indulgence, this trust.

At least... he can't help but find it nice at first, through the initial whisper of shame. Through Qifrey's sudden bout of muteness and through the way his little fists curl even tighter around the hem he'd been clutching at.

The fact he allowed himself to be cradled at all is progress.

Until he starts crying.

Beldaruit jumps, barely managing to avoid nicking that scar-thin skin beneath his hollow socket with his nail as the niceness of the moment shatters, "Q-Qifrey-?"

He doesn't actually believe he's ever seen his boy cry- not more than a sniffle, or beads of dew when he'd accidentally bump his nose. Not... not like this. Not in thick globs, and wheezing inhales.

It's terrifying-

"I.. I think..." his ward manages to choke out, still so impossibly quiet for a boy that's falling to pieces in his master's hand, "..I think there's something wrong with me..."

And Beldaruit, for all the good having a title that begins with Wise does him, could not possibly have known how devastating seven words could be. Or how harshly a frail heart could break.

I think there's something wrong with me

"Nonsense." Beldaruit bites, furious, as he brings his other hand up to thumb away those gutwrenching tears, "Utter- nonsense. Who told you such a thing?"

Who would dare-

The Great Hall had no shortage of gossips, nor did it have a shortage of judgmental eyes and harsher words, but it had never seemed to bother the boy before. Why would- no... no, surely something more had to be afoot here.

Was it another fight?

Were his memories perhaps-

"I- I..."

"Breathe, my child, please-"

His pleading falls on unhearing ears as Qifrey barrels on, as his tears fall even faster.

"...I did something.. and I- I hurt Olly- and it would be better if we.. if we never saw each other anymore.. but I just can't... I can't do it-"

...ah..

What a relief.

It feels almost cruel to think that, given the glossy tears that stuck to ruddy cheeks and weathered thumbs like sap.

And given the sheer distress that made the poor boy tremble with silent sobs- magnified as his confession is voiced aloud and not tucked away to fester..

It feels cruel, that it loosens the tight tangle of worry sitting below his throat.

If it was just boy troubles... well- then, that was much easier managed.

Beldaruit often.. and constantly... found himself at a loss on how to truly help Qifrey- a traumatized child, found sans an eye and without memories. A child who- thank the stars- had also been found without a trace of ink on his skin, but with wrists and ankles scarred from restraints he couldn't remember bearing.

It wasn't... it wasn't something Beldaruit could truly offer much advice about. Not the memory loss, not being buried alive in a coffin that wants you to drown. The aches.. maybe, but... ah.. it wasn't quite the same, now was it? His and Qifrey's..

This, on the other hand, is blessedly simple. It's familiar.

"Hurt Olruggio... how, Qifrey?" he attempts to coax out gently, though he very much doubts any potential severity, "It's not like you two to fight.. and surely not to the point of never speaking again."

"We didn't-" Qifrey bites down on the words like they're a physical thing, and his fingers shift to twist harshly over his little heart, "..it wasn't... a fight.. I... I scared him-"

"Did you mean to?"

The sticky cheeks the Third Wise had been thumbing stickier tears away from jump- thought it's not quite a flinch. His ward's eye, silvery in the dying candlelight as its blue runs down his face, finds Beldaruit's cautiously. Skittishly.

Then dips away.

"...no.."

And that seems to bring upon his limit on touch, too, because the boy tugs away from him with a shudder wrought straight from his bird thin bones. One tiny hand goes to his heart again, and the other to scrub viciously at his lashes.

It hurts to watch, in some fragile part of his heart that's still intact tonight, but he knows... he knows that reaching out right now will not help. It won't make it better, or soothe whatever jagged thorn is pressing out through Qifrey's willow thin skin- threatening to tear straight through his seams.

So he doesn't. He can't.

Beldaruit stays his hands, and lowers them to his lap even though it pains him- before he can scare away this threadbare vulnerability he's been afforded.

"But that.. that just makes it worse.. doesn't it?" his ward tries, sounding for all the world miserable, "Even if I'm not- if I don't want to hurt him... or scare him- I still..."

Oh..

"..sometimes I think.. it would... just be better.. for me to dis-"

"Qifrey!"

Unfortunately- or.. rather, fortunately, for his master's crimped heart- Qifrey isn't able to breathe the sentiment into possibility. Not when his next inhale strangles itself upon being drawn, and not when his eye rolls into the back of his head.

This too, feels cruel. This relief that comes with the abrupt end of a frightful belief.

Beldaruit was already drawing by the time his ward's knees had started to tremble. It's not a quite refined spell, not with the late hour and fear-stricken tremble in his own fingers, but it does its job.

Nacreous smoke pours from the seal, thick and yet devoid of its usual petrichor scent [Qifrey has always hated that scent] as it wraps around his ward in an embrace much kinder than the ground's would've been.

And true to its shoddy make, the makeshift cushion only lasts long enough for Beldaruit to reach out- as he so restrained himself from doing earlier- and scoop Qifrey close.

He was still much too light a thing, and much too sharp.

He wants to break his restraint entirely, and cradle this all-too small boy under his chin until he believes himself worthy of it, but to do so now feels like a betrayel of his fleeting trust. No, Beldaruit will not cave and cradle his ward close..

...but he won't leave him to the cold of isolation either.

It takes a little bit of careful shifting, but it's still almost terrifyingly easy to settle Qifrey down beside him. It's so easy to rest his fluffy head in his lap, and his let his snow-pale limbs curl up like a brushbuddy against his unfeeling leg.

It's easy, he thinks, to sink his fingers into his charge's hair and card it away from tickling his nose. The scar ripped under his eye is no kinder in the dimming light than it was against his thumb, but the creased furrows at the bridge of his nose and brows have softened. His charge's breath is no longer wheezingly shallow.

It's not all that deep either.

Given what the boy had divulged, perhaps only because of too many nights spent unattended and spiralling, or perhaps only because of the hysteria such heavy thoughts induced, Beldaruit doubts he'll awaken any time soon. Not in time for any meaningful words to still be relevant.

And he knows, any response he could piece together- any reassurances he could possibly attempt to offer [that he was wanted here, that Olruggio's initial fear most likely stemmed from worry]- would fall upon deaf and unwilling ears, should the boy wake.

So this.. this was all he could do.

Hours slip through the Third Wise's fingers like the water his charge was so wary of, and yet sleep does not claim him the same way it did Qifrey. It comes close, perhaps, but sure enough- a quiet whimper would rouse him into alertness once more.

Eventually he gives up altogether.

HIs time resolves to be spent with one hand buried in soft white hair, not too dissimilar a shade from his own, and his other penning new and old spells alike in the ball of light still valiently clinging to life.

It's a coin toss, really, if it'll last longer than his candle.. but it's held out so far. Maybe there's something to be said about that.

Maybe it's nothing at all.

The night creeps into dawn, which creeps into early morning with slender fingers of light. It never gets particularly harsh all the way down in the Great Hall, but it's more than enough to gently tease Qifrey into consciousness again.

A pity, to be honest.. he truly could use all the rest he could get...

Unbiddenly, the hand Beldaruit had lain in his hair slips down to brush the smudges beneath his charge's eye- cupping his palm just so to block out the majority of offending light like he could coax him back to sleep.

Alas, it remains a fool's errand.

Qifrey makes a sleepy sorta of mumble, with his little fist clenching in the blanket covering his master's upper leg, and Beldaruit pulls away- lest he startle him. His hand goes to rub between thin shoulders, instead of nesting back in frumpled hair.

A single blue eye pries itself open, bleary and sticky with leftover tears- still half foggy.

One beat.

Two.

"...mm.. dad...?"

Oh.

Those shattered pieces of his old heart thrum with new life.

"...if you wish to call me such, my child."

It takes a second, but either his charge's sight or his hearing clears up enough for him to realize that it's Beldaruit he's been asleep on. Or, more specifically, that it's Beldaruit's legs that are under his head and hand.

"Ah- I.. I'm sorry-!" he springs upwards fast enough that he nearly topples off the side of the bed, caught only by a weathered hand holding fast to his elbow.

"It's quite alright, Qifrey," his master assures, only slightly [he swears!] amused at his floundering, "I wouldn't have put you there if I minded."

Ah-

His ward goes rigid at the admission, and a bright embarrassed flush blooms high on his still-ruddy cheeks. Again, one breath passes.

Two.

Horror dawns on his youthful face.

Perhaps it's to be expected, then, when he takes off towards the door- still disoriented enough to smash straight into the frame.

Children his age certainly did seem to find it so dreadfully embarrassing to confide in their parents, after all.

Heh.

+=+=+

Olruggio wakes up to a weight smashing into his stomach.

"oOf-! Wha-wha-what.. what the hell-!?" the groggy boy sputters out incredulously, flailing his limbs about until his hand hits something soft, "Qifrey!?"

His best friend's snowy white hair just burrows in closer- completely unperturbed by the accidental slaps to his head and jostling to his jutting ribs. Completely... well maybe not content, but sure making himself at home between Olly's knees.

Slowly, the dark-haired boy's breath slows from startled heaves to an annoyed [not really- it's closer to relief, if he was forced to be honest] sigh. His hand settles more heavily upon his head.

"...what are you doing."

He doesn't really know why he's asking- Qifrey showed up wherever Olly was at whatever intervals Qifrey wanted. Kinda like a stray.. but more bitey.

This was far from the first time he'd woken up to the boy asleep beside him. Or reading beside. Or just simply close. But usually... usually it was so much later in the day. Midmorning at least. Qifrey was still in his sleepwear..

"Did.. you have a nightmare, again?"

Not entirely impossible, given the haunted way he props his chin up on Olruggio like he was glorified pillow. Or the way that he was here so early.

What's different is the way he just- flopped on top of him!

"I called Beldaruit dad."

...ah.. yes, now this reaction made sense.

"One of these days.." Olruggio grunts as he reaches down and hauls his best friend up on the pillow beside him, "...we're going to have a serious talk about your allergy to emotional vulnerability."

Not now though.

It's way too early for that kind of crisis.

The Torch of Ghodrey is asleep again, twined around a skinny twig of a boy, before he even realizes the snow colored witch had flinched.

Notes:

i meant to finish this days ago, but math's a bitch....

won't you please tell your hopefully dear author what your favorite part was? they're dying to know 👀