âAlmost, yeah.â Though if anything, it looks better than before - and itâd only been Qifreyâs hands fixing it this time. Even Sinociaâs best efforts couldnât heal fractures within a week.
Healing is, perhaps, making the melancholy even more intolerable. Not only from the exhaustion and pain, but not being able to do anything. He itches to at least dice some vegetables for dinner - to have something to do with the nervous energy - but instead itâs left to run his heart ragged.
It makes it harder on the girls, too. Theyâve been doing their best - but such a visible injury was impossible to ignore, and yet another thing for them to tiptoe around as they processed things.
Though he could, at least, ruffle their hair or cover them with blankets when they fall asleep by the fire - or for Qifrey, rest a hand on his shoulder when it got too tense. He gives it a squeeze for good measure this time.
âYou do,â he concedes, repressing the shrug he wants to accompany it with. âBut thatâs just how our Qifrey is. If you get too honest suddenly, Iâll be even more worried.â
Youâre worrying about me too though, arenât you old friend?
âThatâs one thing I donât need to adjust to, at least. In a way, itâs comforting. I did get the sense you were hiding something.â Which meant he still knew the man well enough to read him - it was a steadfast anchor in all this chaos.Â
It occurs to Qifrey to wonder how long--and how much--Olruggio knew all along. Was it painful to wait ouside Qifreyâs door for so many years and never be let in? But then again, Olruggio is right... Perhaps this closed-offness has been necessary for so long that it is simply a part of Qifrey now. A part that Olruggio accepted right at the very start.
Qifrey still doesnât know what to do with such a thing other than to cherish it. So, in his small ways, he continues to tend to it, like rubbing a cloth gently over silver before setting it back to shine on the mantle.
Right now heâs making dinner. Something Olruggio would help with if he had both arms at the moment. But perhaps Olruggio is helping just by hovering around. It helps more than he probably knows.
Qifrey is pulling the husks off corn with starchy snaps. Cornbread and soup. Something comfortable.
âI underestimated you,â Qifrey says. âIt seems no matter how much I practice my lying skills, youâre always honing your seeing-through-me skills so weâre exactly matched. I suppose thatâs just how our Oru is.â
â... Actually, you mightâve been a teacher in that without knowing it. Iâve noticed the girls leaving your painkillers in increasingly obvious and passive aggressive places for you. Speaking of seeing through people.â
