love's shadow will surround

now the clear sky is all around you
love's shadow will surround you
all through the night

star glowing in the twilight, tell me true
hope whispers and i will follow
'til you love me too.

winter light - linda ronstadt

The front door tugs on a little frost, and he has to give it a real shove.

Damn thing.

The chill of the darker seasons always grips him up here in the hills, pulls at his skirt, his heart. How it's always been.

Or was it once different?

Still, he keeps evening rounds through his gardens short: chucks a scattering of crumbs; for those gulls crossing over at night, for the wild things. Tends to the life he keeps. There were letters for him when he woke, late as is his wont, and he reads Agott's friendly note now as he trundles along.

It's a small house, his. A single bedroom, nowhere much for polite company to stay. By design, of course. There's only one person he wants to live with.

The girls recognise this, when they visit - he always kept his own space when they were kids, after all. They camp outside, have fun with it. Riche will bound off with Euini over the fields, come back wild as wolves, with armfuls of pale blue flowers. Agott and Coco will go for long walks, chase the sunset to the coast. Their laughing, chatting voices will echo back over the hills. Like magic, like a memory.

The landscape will glitter beneath them, and it's nostalgic for him too; waiting for them to get back so he can get the dinner going. He'll scold them for staying out past the dew, courting sickness, and they'll tease him for getting old, for being fatherly.

They tend to themselves, as guests will do. He'd never be good at juggling sandwiches and picnics for them any more, doesn't have the patience for fun presentation. That was your thing.

Then they leave, go back to their lives. Hug him, and fly off - like birds, gulls.

He fits the letter neatly into the bookcase he built for himself, in his favourite place front and center. Nestled between magic ornaments the girls have made, trinkets from their travels, things from past and present. Carvings he's made; a family of brushbugs, pair of foxcats. An old snugstone. The rest of the week's letters he still hasn't gotten around to yet he dumps on the table, for later. Who cares. He certainly doesn't think about anything but family before breakfast, or dinner or whatever people would call it... just as he's always lived. No rush in his atelier.

Other people certainly don't visit. He keeps up a bit of correspondence with people he used to know, the world at large - a firm boundary, which became more rigid as the years have gone by. In short, he's become a recluse.

Of course, there's always new bits of magic to send off for review. Children's toys, household tools mostly now. His mind can't be at peace for long, always a new idea. Occasionally. Society still makes use of that. Within the last few years he's begun writing more; Agott will come collect things, a good kid still; more eager than he deserves, to pore over his reams of parchment, dutiful to pass them on for publication. She was always meant to be a librarian, after all. Reflections on facets of witchcraft, reviews on contraptions of the day, memoirs of all the wild shit with Brimhats that went on - back in the day. Cautionary tales.

He illustrates, when he's really bored. He slaved away on a magical pop-up version of the old fable, the Star and the Silverleaf Maiden - for kids, like. Witchery in the pages, shining silver over the story, his story. Agott says it's a real hit in town. The other letters might be inquiries into the second edition they've badgered him into authorising.

But he never leaves. Did once in a while - at first - had a window to the Assembly. To the world. Girls would visit that way. But he took it down. Every moment away was hell, his roots tugging.

Funny, isn't it? Given how much he was away from home when they all lived together. Business trips, fancy balls with insipid clients, all that boring stuff that would drag so damn bad as the evening went on. The relief he'd feel, the thrill, of coming home - kids in bed, someone waiting for him. Doing the dishes, the laundry, keeping the fire going. A lantern kept on.

I will never go from home again.

The world doesn't leave anyone alone. And it's fine, as long as he can stop people from coming here.

There's nothing here for anyone but him.

The late snowdrops let him push past them. The straggling blackberry bushes line his steps. But at the crest of the hill, all other foliage has dropped away. With the sun tall behind it, the shadow of the thing takes Olruggio in greedily, pulls him close, greets him -

Does nothing. It stands, a monument to itself, still as ice.

The tree - his tree -

The remains of home.

"Hey."

He goes most days. Every one in summer, basking against it with a book, reading the prose aloud. Napping under its figure. Its shadow accepting his, holding them together there. If his joints ache, sometimes he'll hobble over to complain, other times will just give a grumpy wave through the window before bed again. They both know how it is.

He'll commiserate, "you always hated the rain, eh? Sorry, my friend," and set himself down beside it at the tail-end of a storm, sheltered from the worst by the elegant boughs, letting the sky drain down the both of them.

This how it felt in Thristas? I won't leave you.

Like any tree, it needs only light and water.

You and me.

The reflective tone of the season has sunk deeper into him through the week. Hearing from one of the kids should have pleased him, be a comfort - but he's awful, it makes him wish they were here, wish for the world back. Not that world, theirs. The family. It's embarrassing.

Knocking some fruit back into more wine, he takes the glass out with him, stumbling a little against the doorframe. Too much.

Yeah, he doesn't come all the way out every day. Not just when his joints are bad - when he's up all night on an idea. Been a while, though. In the end, there was no excuse yesterday but a deeper pain, was there? Sometimes - it's so stupid, but it hurts. Going hurts.

Comes and goes.

I mean, not how it was back then either, right? There used to be days at a time they wouldn't see each other. And man, it's been years of this - sometimes he wonders if Qifrey's a little sick of him. Can't move, after all. Wouldn't that be tragic?

He's left the lights of his small house on, his tiny atelier, waiting - he likes to see the glint of it on the leaves, his light reach the tree here. Give him what he can. It's always a comfort.

But when his physical senses are dulled, it brings it all back like fog, the flashes of memory. Of that day, all of them around the twisted body. He cups a few trailing branches, letting the hurt filter through him, almost as if keen to. They called him the Witch of Light in those days, eulogise his work still - but this was his masterpiece.

The act that used the ink, the cruor, the blood, to comprise the spell that would freeze the tree in stasis. Become no use to witches, nothing to society, less than nothing to anyone but those who knew him. Save him, by making him this. What they planted in him, stunted.

"You always -" he snaps, voice brittle, pained. He tempers it with a laugh. "Always as though, without your nagging, I'd become some kind of drunkard. Bit rude, that."

He lets the laugh run on, the memory of a scolding voice darting out of place in his brain, haunting the very edges. Laughing back at him. The ghost of a touch atop his wrist, the echo of Qifrey's fingers as he'd primly tug the drink away, urge him to pack it in. And he always would, would heed the care given him. It felt so good to be looked after, the teasing was everything.

"Hair's going a little grey, you know, just like you. Silver." The leaves catch the hue, it reflects them; surely it catches on his head, the black and white; the same moonbeam picks them both up, surely it does. Surely they are the same.

"Been that way for a while now. Didn't want to tell you, since." He swallows. The fruit he chose was bitter orange, swimming in the taste like iron. "Yeah. Makes you think just how much time's passed, eh?"

He turns away, vision spinning a little, the gall rising. "Never said obvious things to you. Be horrible to say, 'I miss you' now, s'that's why I never do, y'know. Not getting it out of me tonight."

Leaves scrape up the back of his neck as he stumbles again, but he pushes away the bristles behind him. "You're wrong," is his mutter, to the tree - to himself - the night birds rustle at his tone, pick off into flight; leaving them alone with each other. So tactful. "Should've said them, shouldn't we? Oh, you're trying to tell me now? Too late."

This is the closest he's been, in years - he vowed to not say it any more, to not be so cruel to them both. He's been doing so well again. And yet it's on his lips - I miss you, Qifrey - how could he think of saying that again? Did he say it already? Has he ever - what has he said, what has he ever said? There's a single star in the sky.

I'm lonely.

He feels his face crumple with pain and shame, voice splitting open like a dam - he sinks to the ground. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He falls to his knees, cradles the branches, hand trembling wildly against bark. "I know you're with me, I know you're here."

I love you, echoes his own empty, lone whisper, voiceless, stupid, buried in the reaches of his mind. "I know, darling," he mumbles aloud, a futile reply to nothing, nothing. I know.

The last gull wheels far above them to surpass the sea, leaves the tree, calls for its mate.

Flies home.

He falls stone asleep against it, against him. It was always pretty rare for them to see the night through together. Back then. They had stuff to get up for, and all. He might fall asleep in the living room after they'd both been drinking, and wake beneath a blanket as heavy as ocean. Qifrey would be gone those times, making breakfast, off on errands. He'd be gone.

When waking now, it feels like he is gone.

Olruggio throws his hands against it, disorientated, desperate, horrified. It feels like a tree. It's Qifrey, it's all that's left of him, but all of a sudden, it feels like any tree.

Is the magic gone?

Is it over, for real?

It's the first time he walks away without saying goodbye.

He's swallowed the horror, the guilt, the fear, by his next visit. There's a good reason for it, so there's more of a spring in his step. He can be normal, he can keep this normal for years yet. This is normal, it's his life.

It's like his field, the same soil they laid down together in their twenties. Going to seed if it doesn't flower yet. Going back to the beginning. But bringing it round, round - every year, coming back. You have to hope.

You have to.

"Sorry I was in pieces last time," he smiles, knocking his knuckles against the wood politely in greeting. "Been a tough winter. Cold."

But when he turns, the sky is blue above them. And they're under the very same piece of it. "Girls have been quiet - living their lives, y'know? So yeah, I guess it's been a little lonely this past year. Don't tell 'em, okay?"

He pulls back his sleeves - "But I got a nice old letter from two of 'em again, longer than last time - here, take a look." He fits it in a little nook between a pair of thick branches. It's his preference to avoid letting himself search for the trace of human features, but that one little bit does look so much like the crook of an elbow. He might as well lean into it this time.

"Yeah, read it at your leisure. I'll give you the gist of it, 'cause lemme tell you - like, Agott's handwriting is less posh these days, but damn, it's still a test without my reading glasses. And you ain't even got yours any more."

He reclines back against it a little, as against a wall, a door - Qifrey always lets him, he doesn't mind. Like when they were tired or drunk, and would pretend at supporting the other, helping them get to their separate beds. Their doors, at least. He's sure they did that sometimes. "Basically - Coco's new kids sound like a real handful. I bet Agott's voice gets hoarse with scolding them. Nah, I'm just kidding. I visited last summer, you remember, or one before last, whatever, and she's real patient with 'em - just like you were with a girl who knew shit-all."

There's one more point he could mention. "I think..." The moment comes to mind, from nearly three - no, four years ago, the last time he was away from home overnight. He couldn't put them off, giving his blessing on their new atelier, cooking everyone a fine feast in their honour. Qifrey would have wanted it that way. Coco putting her long hair behind an ear, beaming with pink cheeks as she snuck a long look at Agott, explaining something gently to a clueless new Unknowing apprentice who'd come straight from a farm.

Olruggio had known that look right away - had done it himself. Watching Qifrey really spell it out for them, for Coco especially - the very basics - it made him look like a parent with a toddler. Like they were his kids too, theirs, had always been that way. That it had been fate they all found each other.

"Yeah... I think they're doing real well. 'Cause - they're, ah, together, you know."

He grins, turning and raising an eyebrow at the tree. It stares mildly back. "No, no - together together! Oh, don't act so shocked... though I was a bit, maybe. They just said they were roommates to me at first, thought she was seeing Tartah still, then she's got her Watchful Eye, and now suddenly all this official stuff! Quite the secret, eh? But then..."

His goblet being filled with wine for him, the timid glance of hands. The linger of an eye. The words so sweet as honey, teasing his heart out. "I know these things take time. Simmering, putting it on a real low heat. Hmm, maybe that's a weird way of putting it... oh, whatever, you know how it is." The time they first locked the front door together. The handshake, the laugh. The squeeze. "It's when you live with someone, make a place with them. Realise that's it, now. That's home."

He always used to blink away, hide his face; behind the shadow of his bangs, whenever he said something a little too honest, too silly. Be easier, now - he's let his hair grow long, just doesn't give a shit any more. And he'd never look dead in the eye. He does now, wishing his face would burn as it always did back then, that the tension would feel as warm. The whorl in the center of the trunk fixes him in place - the eyelike hollow - now he dreads looking aside, when the pretend spell will be done with. Do you see me still?

Do you remember too?

"Here," he mutters. He slips out the silky ornaments from his cloak, fixes the knots around a random branch like an offering. "Coco wants you to have them back, see - designed a new pair with Agott, she has. And their new ones look the same, like - but silver. Ain't that nice?"

The breeze catches the tassels, the faded golds intertwining like sparks on a young fire. "Got each other, they say, so they'd rather you hold onto these old things. The ones that watched over them - guess they want to watch over you in return. Oh, don't refuse now. It's a done deal."

He runs his fingers through them gently, soft as two silky little bird wings. "That it was mine..." Soft as a memory. "You used my tassel design for your apprentices, not yours, like any normal master. But you weren't normal." His fingers drift to the branch beneath, from soft to the sad prickle of treeskin. "Not normal at all."

But then again, it was yours first.

At the time, it had been a precaution Qifrey had devised. It had made sense. They'd use Olruggio's tassel design - just in case anything ever happened, people would know that custody of the girls would go to him. Not be returned to the Assembly for reassignment. Yeah, it had made so much sense. He'd grown to be glad of it. Theirs were delicate girls, children who had escaped situations... had nowhere else to go that knew who they really were, what they needed. Won't ever be relevant - knock on wood - just a sweet, secret gesture. The meaning of it. If they're mine, they're yours. Always. Not like it will ever actually come to that, right?

"But why did you say that to me," he demands now, suddenly. "How did you dare? And how did I not see through you?"

It's insane - it defies belief - to live life knowing this would happen, maybe soon, and it wouldn't just be a hypothetical, Olruggio would really be left with them, a family with its heart broken through the middle. It's been years, and now he has to live life, and it's insane. "Mine while you're-" Here. Like this. He tugs the knots tighter, stands back with a cold face. "But they will always, always be yours."

He barely ever needs to wear his own hat any more, it gathering dust on his kitchen table. The tassel. It was yours first.

"Just as I am."

I'm happy now, each delicate strand of them whispers into the wind. The letter - the same sentiment.

I feel hope, I feel glad to be in this world.

I'm glad I was born.

I'm glad I met you, Professor Qifrey.

I was your hope, and I still live.

You still live.

Riche still writes so small. Her curling hand lain carefully out, the certain, simple sentences. She states what needs to be said, and no more - his letter contraption had finished churning it out before Olruggio even got to it, pulling himself out of bed. But that's why it's so precious.

"Made me feel safe. Then life got sad again. Then scary. But you taught me how to keep my Richeness even when new stuff is happening, so I feel safe again. And Euini is too. He says hi. He says eek, don't write that, make it sound cooler. He says never mind, it's okay... sheesh, she writing out the details of every conversation they have? We don't need to hear that!" He laughs. Her definition of 'what needs to be said'... simply differs from other people. All Qifrey would remember is a small boy they met, the wolf they bid farewell to, not the tall and humble man he's become by their girl's side. Properly reversing his transformation had been a trial Qifrey missed.

An easier thing.

"Professor Olly, she says." He doesn't mind it any more. "Professor Olly, it's true. People DO wanna buy what I make, in this town too. They like it - this part's underlined - CAUSE it's mine. Being me is good. Living is good." His cheeks hurt from how much he's smiling at the tiny, sure letters. "Thank you forever."

Winter blows strong through the old thing he gets from his pocket, almost pulls it away. "Hey, don't cry. I know you are," he murmurs faintly, pinning it by the other two, dancing with them in the same breeze. That chill in the day swallows up the warm tear on his cheek. "No, it's not me. You."

Riche was the first to switch to a grown-up tassel, deciding on her own crystal ribbon within a year after her graduation. A year after Qifrey - well. Olruggio's kept it safe all this time since she slipped it into his pocket, and what with Agott and Coco's gesture, it feels only fitting to bring them together now. If only it could be a full set... but he can't hope for a letter from everyone this season. Things don't work out so neat, do they now?

"Makes you happy too, right?" He's still smiling as he takes in the sight, settling the joy safe alongside the ache so deep he doesn't know what to do with it. "A master's duty isn't over 'til he gets those tassels back."

If that's the case, is something drawing to a close for them too?

No.

"See you tomorrow."

It's when he's sitting there again, murmuring to it, about nothing and everything, that the peculiar event occurs. What with the winter gulls that fly overhead, and the occasional quadryphon when their time rolls around, he's not about to squint up at a bird. But he should have, so he'd have been prepared.

"Ggwahfph," is how undignified he's made - and in front of Qifrey as well - as the thing careens into his face. "What in the- you little-"

But the bird, a foreign beast he recognises only from childhood picturebooks, has creeped mildly onto his shoulder - brushing the feathers against his neck in behaviour he'd almost call friendly. If he had to place a name, he thinks it's called a dove. Pacified through curiosity, he tugs at its feet a tad, freeing the burden it was laden with.

Immediately it takes flight, dropping one final item - a piece of metal he manages to catch, released from its beak. A ring.

Oh, that girl. She'll always think of a way to get her love to you.

The heavy letter, brimming with bubbly writing, he reads out at once to him; laughing all the while. The things she's seen, fun she's had - all of Tetia's lengthy little epistle radiates with joy, energy and life itself. Bound to the parchment with diminishing magic is the final piece. "Sheesh! She better have had this thing insured!" Olruggio huffs, but this kind of mood can't be ruined - not as he's tying the last tassel in place, safe as can be.

"So she doesn't just have that twin-coned hat she always wanted on her noggin - she changes her tassels up all the time! Her hat wardrobe, she calls it! The cheek of that girl! Guess it's the fashion abroad, eh, accessorising differently every day? You're right, you're right, she's young after all. And living life to the fullest." Grinning as he scans the ink again, soaking in its excitable cheer, he knows, he knows, he has enough satisfaction for the two of them.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you, oh and thank you... apparently that's what all this says at the bottom, all total gobbledygook to me, I'm not pronouncing that. Amazing." All the words people have said to her, and all the things she's said back in those tongues. He's never known a kinder girl, a woman more dedicated to bringing a smile to a stranger's face. Exchanging magics with foreign folk will be a delight that never ends, right up her alley. He just hopes she's safe - but it seems so. She's the prince's ambassador. She's happy. "I wanna hear a good bit more about her adventures, honestly - she should be writing memoirs for Assembly fops to entertain themselves with, not me!"

She'll write again, he knows. They all will. And he can't wait to give each one of them a hug, a meal that reminds them of home; even if this place isn't that for them any more. But with the little tassels reunited, he can't convince himself this place doesn't mean just as much to them as to him, in the end.

Oh, the weight of it.

"I should add mine, yeah. I know. Be a picture, wouldn't it?" His chest feels hot, the feeling unnameable. He thought that's what he'd do right away, complete the effort. Make it a family thing, a piece of all six of them together in one place like they can't really do any more.

"You're not having it." He smiles, firm. He knows it's a sad smile. And there's nothing better to give him instead, only his time, his time. His companionship, his routine. His life.

But that tassel was given to him before theirs were. That thing on a hat he never wears, forgets about - suddenly, he recalls that it's his treasure. Leaving it out here? Never. It would feel like - and he knows it's not a goodbye for the girls, it's a message, a gesture, proof of their love to give them back - but how could he?

"No, I can't part with it. I'm telling you. You'd have to come take it yourself. Come get it, then."

He uncrosses his arms; lets his sleeves flap, shrinking in on himself, defeated.

Qifrey, just-

"Come back."

The ring clunks into his pocket - Riche's fine handiwork as a child, another thing shared between them - which Tetia found a good use for again, to be the beacon leading that dove back here.

He doesn't need hers to see the spell working, because this he always keeps on him.

Holding up his left hand, he lets the ray shine forth from his ring finger. His own beacon, meeting the metal glinting from the lowest branch - at the centre of the tree - the heart of it. The last thread between them.

Home.

He stays there until the light fades, silent, curled beneath the base like a child. They used to climb trees together, fly up like any witch children sneaking up out of the sea; help each other cling on hand in hand. Hide there until sundown just like this, chatting for hours about the future that lay before them. The eternity.

He has nothing left to say.

What would happen if he died here? Can anyone tell him? If he died alone out here... nobody would be around in time to bury him.

Could they meet again, then?

They'd bury him here, wouldn't they? Should start on a will, really.

Qifrey started in a coffin.

When did he get Tetia's letter? It had made him so happy, he'd - he was going to make a good meal to celebrate by himself, have it out here with Qifrey, Qifrey, share it with him, talk. Tell him so many more things. There's still more left, every day, always is.

A whole day? Two? I'm sorry. That was stupid. If he doesn't eat, get up and leave his side, he can't be with him any more, can't live.

How selfish.

He makes to rise. Haul his starving body away to cook, clean, live out a life for the both of them that goes nowhere, stays here, forever. Makes to push away the pang of parting even for that short time, the horror and comfort of having to walk towards the tree again, getting the honour, the blow, the tree, the tree, the tree.

Qifrey's in it, right? Hiding in the boughs, laughing, shy as a shadow.

Growing up strong for the future.

The seed of hope.

Even plants die.

First, the leaves make him think it's still autumn. That indeed, he's under one of those trees with Qifrey, children again, admiring the reds and yellows, swapping their favourites. But they're black.

He dozed off in a pile of black leaves.

His head snaps up.

"No," Olruggio laughs. It's a short, shocked sound. "No, no. But that wouldn't be fair. That wouldn't-"

He can't do more magic. They all knew then. It's not something that can be undone, it was already stalling a curse, a fate. It was inside him.

"That would be so cruel to me. I don't think you'd do that."

The tree is even more still than ever. He realises under the weight of the tassels, the flaking branch has been drooping. Black at the curling, withered edges. Every one of them. Why hadn't he noticed?

All this time, he's been thinking of himself.

Talking to himself.

Resisting the reality.

"My darling, my petal," he croons, cries, laughs, it doesn't matter which, cradling the debris with hands shaking in terror. The laugh is so twisted, desperate and bleak even to his ears, his ageing ears.

My hope.

Early spring wind picks up those leaves around him like a baby's breath, like a heartbeat. It's like a dream, like he's dreamed, the fall of the figure from the boughs, the draught taking it all away, the bark like shed skin.

Like an angel, a corpse.

A ghost.

But the light from his house calls from afar, illuminates everything.

"Olly?"

His living, breathing man.

He'd brought his cloak, thrown it off himself - he collects it now - stumbles. Covers his own mouth with it in emotion, then brings it shaking around the figure, naked as the moon.

Falls against him, against the pale skin shrouded in black fabric, arms shaking, he doesn't know whose, clinging like a leaf to a tree.

Like shore to the sea.

"My hope." The other man's voice cracks into use. "The seed - the-"

"You," Olruggio begins, but cannot yet.

"Despair, I was meant to be theirs. I'm-"

"We petrified you," he manages, whispers. "We kept it with us. I didn't know, but. Oh, I just..." He breaks away, cannot accept life's reward. It's the light from the house, it's so bright. "But I thought - maybe - with things seen through, you'd-"

"Hope returned. It finished the spell. A circle," Qifrey tries. Are they making sense? I hardly do magic any more, they've given me up. Just an old man. I can't even remember.

"And you remember me?" He turns it on him. "What happened - I mean, you're not - this hasn't-"

"No, I - I feel it." His voice is faint, but Olruggio can tell. He's himself. "I'm here. I think."

"Oh, good, that's so good. I, I worried, you'd - it'd take everything from you - I - haha, can you-" Words running on like an idiot, he tugs on those arms a little, prompting Qifrey to test the legs, his body, without having to inspect for him. This is all so insane.

But Olruggio does take him in, as they sit there processing; hearts yammering. Takes him in, takes him all in. The hair, like feathers on that dove. Strange things jump to him - the same faint freckling of moles on his skin, the tiny wrinkles creasing the edges, the new crow's feet - you're old, like me, like me! We're the same, forever! And Qifrey takes him in just as avidly, hands boldening towards him, hand upon hand upon hand, hair, shoulder - but the sudden realisation, like lightning splitting a tree, is that Qifrey must do so, that - he's using his hands, not his eye. The eye, the beautiful sky iris, caked with tears, shot through with white cloud - with silver.

When his cheek is cupped, Qifrey leans into it, shaking his head, mouth trembling.

"I'm your eye," Olruggio whispers frantically. "For our lives, for ever. Remember? You don't need to worry about anything ever again."

"My eye," Qifrey's voice cracks again, with the disuse of it. Like bark indeed split with lightning, showing the new growth inside. Like the croaky rustle of new foliage after the frost. Like himself.

"But there's not much left of me." Olruggio's is hoarse too through the shock, body shaking again, with fear or panic. He didn't eat, he hasn't been sleeping, has been drinking so much, this is where these years have taken him. The incredulity has already caught up with him, to this moment with the one thing he's waited for, hoped for with the marrow of a soul. Is this real? "I've - been going strange places, I'm - I've become a weak man, I'm just-"

He searches for breath against Qifrey's neck, searching for the words away from the unseeing gaze. "Been trying. I've told them I'm okay, I've been living, working - but I haven't been - sometimes I don't even know how much time has passed - I've not been here while you've not -"

"It's like being born again. I'm-"

"I've been frozen," Olruggio sobs.

"Me too."

Can he tell where they are? Does he know they're on the ruins of their life?

But Qifrey is not a ghost. So he isn't thinking of the end.

"Your hair's silver. It is," He laughs with emotion, wonder, running his hands through it, timidly at first, then with open need for the knowing of him. Olruggio's eyes dart at once to his, searching for that recognition, but the gaze is blank; or rather, as though seeing something unseen. "I know it is. Did you tell me? While I was like that, am I remembering? Do I remember? Tell me more, everything -"

He pulls Qifrey to him, an embrace like they never had before, fingers clinging to his bare back above the fabric of his own cloak. The bones feel as sharp as they ever looked, the muscles faded - even more than his own - he tries to say something, but it just doesn't come. He tried all this time, said so much. Nothing, nothing left. Only when Qifrey shifts, does he mumble wetly upon the skin of his shoulder, "Sorry. Should I -"

Weak fingers hold him there, remembering their own power. Ones that called forth countless drawings, craft, the circles that led them all the way back here - the food they've made, the miracles - clumsy, innocent hugs of childhood, meek, sweet - the long gap, the long journey -

"Don't let me go. Please."

"Okay," Olruggio responds, instantly.

"Well, I do need a moment though. You'll give me a moment, won't you, I need to..." His shy modesty as he tugs the cloth neat across his chest - the distracted certainty with which he maintains the grip of their hands. The crease of the brow as he taps his forehead with his free one in thought. The mark of an empty socket, the parts of him that have scarred back over again. It's all so wildly familiar, so completely dear to the heart. I love you, I love you, I love you to pieces and back.

"Oh Olly, there's so much to say. How can we make sense of it?"

"Come home with me. Come home," Olruggio urges, gesturing back behind them. Silly. He grips the wrist again, to lead him to what he cannot show him. "Qifrey, I stayed here. I built something new. Live with me, won't you? Live with me."

"Live," Qifrey repeats slowly, boyishly, face so clean, innocent; so tired, so laden, with everything and nothing - yet Olruggio follows the word, traces their twin memory back to that moment... the one that changed their trajectory and set the Star's long course. That had the meaning of their whole lives in it. Live with me, Olruggio, if you want. Help me teach my pupils, be my lost Eye. Watch over us. Me.

Eat with me, work with me. Fall asleep with me. Breathe, take steps towards me. And don't ever go.

"Even when we were kids, all I wanted," he starts, but Qifrey just squeezes.

The girls are okay. Everything's okay, he means to insist instead, to repeat everything he's said all this time, the long days, the cold nights. In case nothing got through - because of course it didn't. But none of it feels necessary. The awareness is there between them, that that duty is done. Life has gone on without them, grown over them. There is no need to tend to others; no need even to live together; no need to be bound like that.

Only the want to.

He's cradled again. Fingers trace the hair along his jaw, dance through his breath. Olruggio moved to rise, but now he lingers, now he lets Qifrey make the first choice in years.

There was so much they never said, never did. It felt unnecessary: oh, something they'd get round to one day, if the mood struck. Laying it out there. Olruggio had always planned on it, really, when the girls graduated maybe, when they were free. Finally saying his piece. And he could have gone on his whole life without it, maybe, if that would have suited them better.

Nothing he'd even said during these years had been enough. Worse yet, maybe there would have been a point to it, Qifrey might have heard it, remembered it after all. Another wasted opportunity. Silly time, silly years, all he knows.

But maybe that's why it's somehow very easy now.

Qifrey's unseeing hands are the ones that guide them into it, calm and frank. As if they just know, are seeing it through. But it becomes a desperate thing. They twist into Olruggio's locks, pull them free; the mouth presses and dissolves into a human sob.

The breath between them is the oxygen needed, taken by a tree and given out again. It's all so very simple.

When Olruggio breaks the kiss and fixes their cheeks one to the other, the mutual sigh has the weight of these seasons in it. But he isn't worried. He isn't even old. It's the same story, the same magic. The same original hope.

Qifrey's laugh against his mouth is the same, the same child's cry, the same grown-up vow.

I see a home in you.

How the world has changed. How Olruggio hasn't, not really. But none of it matters any more. They've been forgotten, the girls flew the broken nest, and it's wonderful. There's nothing left. It's finally okay.

The tassels blow away into the wind.

We're happy now. We wanted to tell you that.

And we want you to be happy, too.