Until the wound becomes a window

“What’s that?” Olruggio said, pulling the door closed behind him and leaning in curiously.

“A sword,” Qifrey said wretchedly, like he was admitting to some abominable act of forbidden magic, or a torrid affair.

and

He had still managed to keep this traitorous growth from finding a permanent place in the garden of his mind when, one day alone on the road, the realization finally washed over him fully that if he never went home, if he could only stay his damn course this go around, third time’s the charm, he would never again have to see Olly’s face grow slack and empty as the memory erasing spell took hold. Qifrey would never again steal the past and future of his best friend to keep himself alive like some parasitic infection in his own right. Olruggio would live his life freely, without this strangle vine promise of their youth sapping him of substance.

And in that moment of perfect relief, the silverwood had seized its chance.

Only pure luck ensured that no one had been there to witness Qifrey angrily blinking tears from one eye and plucking foliage out of the hollow left behind by the other, each leaf already going sullenly autumn-limp and brown along the edges as the branch they sprung from retreated back into the shelter of his body. A few of them got in his mouth, the bitter ocean tang of tears mixing with the vegetal sharpness and rot of fallen leaves before he could spit them out. The taste had made him feel sick. Sicker.

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: とんがり帽子のアトリエ | Tongari Boushi no Atelier | Witch Hat Atelier (Manga) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Olruggio/Qifrey (Tongari Boushi no Atelier) Characters: Qifrey (Tongari Boushi no Atelier), Olruggio (Tongari Boushi no Atelier) Additional Tags: Character Study, qifrey pov, Hopeful Ending, Manga spoilers up to chapter 97, Implied alcoholism-adjacent behaviour but like within the canon-typical range, Olruggio suffers some conversational jumpscares in this one that would kill a lesser man, but thankfully as we all know the star of Ghodrey is built different, Mr. Qifrey ‘we must imagine Sisyphus fucking miserable actually. just bereft. out of his mind with grief’ Witch Hat Atelier, it’s been Olly depression hours in this atelier. tfw no qifrey Summary:

Something, equal parts wariness and weariness, stirs in Olruggio’s eyes whenever Qifrey makes some reference to the future — when he indirectly promises a tomorrow, a next week, an ‘after your commissions are done’. It’s the subtlest thing, a flicker, a spark; someone who knew him less well might not pick up on it. But Qifrey knows Olruggio as well as he knows himself, and he can hardly in good conscience begrudge him his flinch of cynicism. Not when it’s wholly his own fault for having put it there.