One of my favourite official Qifrey arts, which will probably go into my all-time favourites, or even my current first place in ranking, is this one from volume 16.
He is so peaceful, broken here, so open in his vulnerability, exhaustion, imperfection. This is not a teacher with a smile here to charm you, induce you to continue struggling, or inspire you to share love through sigils. This is not a picture of a loved man covered in ribbons, beautiful, elegant, enticing. This is not a mask — it is a shred of it, a smile on his lips the only remains. And yet even the smile is no more fake — genuine, soft, barely noticeable, difficult, traced not with joy, but pain. Qifrey smiles because he knows his fate and accepts how hard his life is, but moves on — life is still beautiful to him. Even with a rain of torture, there’s something in this life that still makes him smile. His fragile inner peace seeps through — he can find no rest in the arms of the other, he is forced to carve a space to rest inside his heart. Nowhere else is safe — he lets the truth shine through his features. And for the first time, he lets the reader see it, too. And we finally see Qifrey not only as a grey character from the pages of a favored story, but a human, a broken, tired human like us who wishes only to live — who wishes to be honest. He is honest here, just for a moment, before the girls come in, before Olruggio witnesses him. In his solitude, he is honest. In his solitude, he finally smiles unwillingly.
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