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To call this night a disaster would be a fucking understatement.
It had started with Agott and Coco’s platform suddenly toppling them over, and Agott had nearly plummeted onto the street, the shock coursing through her veins leaving her too frozen to use her sylph shoes in time.
It wasn't just the fall that had left her so shocked, though. Olruggio had also seen exactly what she had for this to happen: Lady Adina Arkrome. Her mother. A sharp anger flared through his chest at this thought -- Years had passed with them hearing not a word from the librarian, which had broken Agott’s heart.
And today it had endangered her very life.
...Agott could have cracked her head open on the ground if he hadn't made it in time. It was this dreadful awareness that made him continue holding her even after they had landed.
Unfortunately, that very awareness also distracted him, and unlike Agott, Coco had been the one clinging onto his arm, which made it embarrassingly easy for her to slip away and to fly headfirst to the first sight of trouble.
Then a writhing mass of black tendrils filled the sky, because of course it had to get worse-
He couldn't just leave Agott alone right now, damn it-
Thankfully, Qifrey was right on her tail.
It truly was like master, like student for these two, wasn't it?
He joined the fray right behind them the moment Agott was safe with her fellow apprentices and Mr. Nolnoa, just in time to hear Coco declare fire as this leech’s weakness.
Now, Olruggio couldn't possibly just leave if that was the case, could he?
Things simply did not stop getting worse after that.
To begin with, the rate at which this monstrosity grew was unbelievable to the point that Olruggio couldn't not suspect Brimhats, but there was simply no time to take that thought any further.
They continued to grow shorter on hands as time flew by, while the leech showed no signs of slowing down its assault. In fact, it seemed to have gotten even more aggressive.
And frankly, Olruggio himself had reached his limit a long time ago, he was simply pushing past the exhaustion and then some.
His hand cramped around the searing needle pen in its hold, along with his entire arm, his shoulder. The air around him, sizzling hot and chock full of smoke, seared against skin, irritated his eyes, his lungs. The flames distorted everything in vicinity, almost dizzying.
Wild wisps of fire threatened to lick at him frequently, even though he made sure not to set himself on fire, there was no time to seek perfect control over them in the midst of roaring gusts of wind.
But he didn't flinch away from this pain, nor from the rest of his aches.
He was familiar with the pain of drawing magic and fire, after all.
What was unfamiliar though, was the sting of razor sharp teeth as they sank into his side, having caught him off guard through sheer numbers. Several more tendrils latched on in that moment of weakness, biting down.
Strangely enough, there was no pain beyond the bite itself, except for the odd tug of blood being syphoned away by the beast’s mouths. If anything, his body seemed numb, extremities tingling.
No good. If he had to make this thing let go, he needed to draw-
The numbness was soon replaced by a sharp chill running down to his feet, the jarring feeling of being thrown around through the air by the leech at a speed faster than Coco and Agott’s sylph shoes combined, leaving him terribly disoriented.
Then-
Wind was knocked out of his lungs altogether, he gasped and wheezed for it in vain. Spots flickered around his sight. Pain bloomed everywhere; his back his shoulder his head
Loose pieces of rubble, small and gravelly, rolled and shifted beneath him. Slimy tendrils writhed around. The sharp stench of blood had filled the air the entire night, but now it was becoming unbearable in its intensity, its proximity. He gagged and heaved.
The world blurred around him, replaced by a pitch black darkness.
“-Hey, can you hear me? Hey!”
I can, he thought numbly. Can you shut up? was what he wanted to say, but his voice refused to work. Now that he thought about it, why was that the case, again?
…Did he even know how to speak? Maybe he didn't. That was right, maybe he couldn't speak and just forgot about it.
The voice was weirdly familiar though, it made something gnaw at the back of his mind. Made warning bells echo through his head: this voice was not to be taken lightly.
He struggled to open his eyes despite everything in him protesting the action, any action. He could only manage to open one.
The figure blurred and reformed itself repeatedly, spiky brown hair and a crimson hat, crimson blood staining the pure white wings; a worried face, pale and bloodless.
The knight from Godley. Olruggio could have sworn he remembered his name…
“Are you awake? Hey, stay awake, don't close your eyes, that's bad-”
I know that already. Please, please shut up.
At least it was better than Easthies being here-
“Utowin?” With a swish of that irksomely familiar cloak, the very man walked into Olruggio's unsteady sight. He groaned. Damn it, he had spoken too soon- no, wait- thought too soon, hadn't he?
“I heard a noise over here – What the fuck?”
And oh, would you see that? So the golden child could cuss, after all. A little laugh bubbled in his throat, unwillingly escaping past his lips- Oh, so his voice did work!
Something stuck to his lips as they moved- the inside of his mouth was rather sticky, he realised. So was his face, and his side as well, now that he thought about it.
“Are you okay?” the knight- Utowin! Olruggio realised with an epiphany- nervously asked. Olruggio levelled him with a flat look, and he cringed.
“R-right! Anyways, we've gotta do something about the bleeding-”
He had a hand pressed against Olruggio's aching side. Olruggio did the same, and his hand came away bright red.
Huh.
At least his quire had gotten away unstained.
“ – We can't move him like this, the Medical Tower’s way too far away, and the bleeding really won't stop – help me out here, will ya, Esth?”
...Stop bleeding, huh? Fire could help with that - how fortunate that numb fingers instinctively hadn't allowed his pen to fall out of their grip.
“Wait! What are you doing?”
Olruggio woke up to a white ceiling and the sharp smell of alcohol.
“Ah, you're awake!”
Olruggio twisted his neck towards the unexpected voice, eyes widening.
“How are you feeling? Is anything amiss?” Beldaruit asked, sitting at Olruggio's bedside in his lonesome. The elderly witch looked like he had aged some fifty years overnight, but some colour returned to his face when Olruggio stirred.
But more importantly, since when did the sage start acting like a doctor?
He began to push himself upright, and “You should stay put,” Beldaruit protested, but he needn't have done so. Olruggio's arms gave up all on their own.
“Lord Beldaruit,” he addressed, flopping back onto the stiff bed, pretending he didn't feel the sting of his friend's absence.
Of course there were multitudes of reasons that could stop Qifrey from being here, and if it were a matter of the girls' safety, then Olruggio did want him to prioritise that above all else. But that could not erase the hollow feeling he was left with.
“My boy,” Beldaruit sighed in fond relief. “It's reassuring to see you conscious at last. Pray tell me how you feel.”
That question again- “Like shit,” Olruggio replied. “Where are Qifrey and the girls?”
Something twisted in Beldaruit's expression, and Olruggio's stomach dropped. “They are well,” Beldaruit reassured, but the consolations didn't mean shit to him right now.
“They truly are,” Beldaruit repeated. “It's just that you have been unconscious for a while now, and several things have happened in the meanwhile. Frankly, it's all a bit of a big mess. Everyone is rather terribly busy, all medical facilities are overflowing with people, it takes some time before permitting visitors.”
“Your name would have been influence enough to bypass that,” Olruggio rightfully accused, suspicious. “If that were truly the case.”
He pushed his arms against the bed, swung his legs onto the floor-
A sharp pain burned through his side, and he lurched. Beldaruit caught him by the shoulders.
“This hurts worse than the bite,” Olruggio hissed through clenched teeth.
“That would be the leech poison, apparently.” Beldaruit dryly replied. “Now, please stay put, your wounds might open up once more.”
“A lot has happened,” Beldaruit restated. “More than you could possibly imagine. Let's give everyone some time for processing all the events of the night, both for them and for you. And that cannot happen when you are on the verge of unconsciousness. Please, trust me and wait awhile; you have my word that everyone is well.”
“Fine,” Olruggio relented, hissing as he eased himself back into the bed. “Fine.”
Beldaruit opened his mouth once more, but the door creaked open, and despite already knowing it wouldn't be Qifrey, Olruggio was still disappointed to see the new arrival.
“Captain’s asking for you,” Utowin informed Beldaruit.
“Please tell her I shall be there shortly,” Beldaruit replied.
“Will do,” Utowin said, his nervous gaze constantly flickering to Olruggio the whole time.
“Hey,” he addressed at last, clearing his throat. “How are you?”
“Alive, for now,” Olruggio replied with utmost honesty.
“I see,” Utowin replied. “ ‘Course, that's how anyone would feel. That's good, then. Um, I hope you'll be feelin’ better soon. You should- er- take care, or somethin'. Yeah. I'll be on my way, then.”
And he left with a wave. Olruggio silently kept staring at his turned back.
“I don't understand what his deal is,”* Olruggio confessed the moment the door closed. “First time we meet, he threatens me. And now, he's motherhenning? I don't get it at all.”
“That would happen to be the natural response towards someone you found half dead,” Beldaruit deadpanned. “Not that you would understand it, you motherhen everyone you know, after all.”
“I do not-”
Beldaruit continued as if he hadn't heard a word. “-And I don't suppose the fact that you scared him half to death when you-” he took a delicate pause, clearing his throat, “-burned your wounds shut is helping the matter.”
“So I did actually do that, huh?”
Beldaruit perked to attention at those words, almost unnoticeable. But Olruggio had known this man for most of his life.
“Do you have trouble remembering any of the events?”
“No, no,” Olruggio replied. “Just that it was hard to separate my thoughts and actions at the time.” He narrowed his eyes. “I never heard that you had changed paths to become a doctor, though.”
Beldaruit's smile became pinched.
He shifted a little, let out a huff of air through his lips, praying for a miraculous surge in a patience he didn't possess.
“You are not that brilliant a liar, when it comes down to it.” he pointed out. “Not when you can't hide behind the eccentricity of your reputation. Not when it's people who know you.”
“I see,” Beldaruit sighed, accepting defeat. “There wasn't any point to being roundabout with this from the start, was there?”
“No,” Olruggio echoed. There really wasn't.
“Like I said, too much has happened. Will you tell me all that you can remember, for now? Just humour this old man.”
Beldaruit's smile was all but gone, his voice a distorted clash between half ordering and half begging, and either of the two were foreign to Olruggio to begin with, now their combination was unnerving.
“Fine,” He couldn't help but agree, hoping that he would never have to see the Wise abandon his whimsy like this again. “All that I can remember…”
“I remember being bitten, and I remember… falling, and Utowin and,” his lips instinctively curled in displeasure, “Easthies. And then, waking up right now– no. Wait…” There was… something else. He struggled to remember more past a throbbing headache, brows knotted in effort.
“Don't remember being brought here… I suppose I was unconscious- but I can remember… lying down, seeing doctors’ robes. I think I somehow managed to wake up for just a moment somewhere in this place– and I don't think anything happened after–”
Then what was this feeling? Something nagged at him, a small part of his heart that believed that something had happened, something he was familiar with.
“After that…” he rubbed his temples, it felt as if his mind was untethered to him. “I think I was out again afterwards… but it didn't feel like falling unconscious. It was like… falling asleep.”
Yes, that was it. The nagging grew louder, sweat clumped at his brow.
“It was like when I've fallen asleep in the middle of something important after overworking for too long…” he confessed, childishly mortified to admit his bad habits before his friend's former professor. “What I mean by all that is… it was like something I have felt before, and- ”
Something truly terrible flashed across Beldaruit's face at that moment, an expression both fearful and fearsome in equal measure. Then, a blink, and it was gone as if it never existed, replaced by a forcefully neutral expression.
Olruggio forgot all the words that had been on the tip of his tongue.
“Something you have felt before, I see,” Beldaruit hummed, his tone kept carefully light. “Is there anything else?”
“...No. That is it,” Olruggio replied, kneading a hand against his aching forehead.
Sleeping again was irresistibly tempting all of a sudden. Better than anything going on at the moment, at the very least.
“I see. I'll leave you for your rest, now,” Beldaruit said with a gracious smile, sealchair fully rising and turning at his command.
“About the others,” he suddenly piped up, halfway to the door. “I'll see to whatever I can do to speed the formalities up,” he promised, more honest than he had been in the entirety of their conversation.
‘Much appreciated,’ was what Olruggio had wanted to say, but sleep had laid its claim on his tongue just before he succumbed to it again.
He just hoped to see everyone soon.
It was with a heavy heart that Beldaruit left Olruggio's room.
“My work is done with. He is well,” he informed with a charming little smile. It slid off his face the moment the nurse went inside with a nod.
Beldaruit lingered with the door shut behind his back, feeling terribly lost. Breathing sharply through his nose, he rested his ailing head on his hand.
Something tumbled out of his lap then, slipping through the shawl that lay hung limply over his frame– Olruggio's hat.
Ah, he had forgotten to give it back- he must have overlooked it when it had gotten covered and tangled in all the thick drapes. But this was no time for returning it, he'd let the young man have his rest.
They would have to meet soon, after all, even if the very thought of it made Beldaruit's heart ache.
Beldaruit knelt down to pick the hat by its rim, black and embroidered gold. The tassel suited the hat it now adorned so well, one would have never guessed it didn't originally belong to him - usually, a symbol of a truly heartfelt bond. Today, those golden threads mocked him as they swayed in his wavering grip.
He ran a hand over the tassel. If what he had found out was true, then he wondered if he might witness the breaking of one as well.
But no matter what all the evidence pointed to…
“Tell me it isn't true.” Eyes screwed close, he whispered, prayed to himself, for the sake of the boy that had been his apprentice, for the man that he had grown up to be. “I shall believe it. Tell me this isn't what I think it is, and I will take your word for it, no question asked. Just tell me this isn't true.”
What a failure of a Wise he was, to allow such a foolhardy weakness for anyone. What a failure of a teacher, to even have to think of accusing his own student of such a heinous act.