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He wasn’t sure Tir would understand about wanting his father now. They were each other’s closest friends, but they weren’t the same person. They couldn’t be.
He slid back down into blankets, and tugged one up over his head, and tried to sleep. He did, eventually.
Two nights before their scheduled departure, he woke from another of those hazy nerve-wrenching dreams with Tir’s hand on his shoulder, voice quiet and soothing. Oliver said, sitting up, “I’m all right.”
Tir sat up too, and looked at him, eyebrows up.
Ollie looked away: at one post of the bed, a delicate spiral swirl of dark wood. It pierced the night like an omen. “It’s just dreams.”
“Understandable,” Tir said, “when one happens to be sleeping.” He said it affectionately. His hair was braided, long enough to slide down along his arm, but the end was coming undone. Not flawless, but beautiful. Not for the first time, Ollie considered that this was unfair. He knew he himself did not look uncannily luscious in the dead of night.
“Thanks.”
“You don’t normally have nightmares.”
“They’re not really nightmares.”
Tir looked at him some more.
“They’re…” He waved a hand. “I don’t know. Uncomfortable. Do you ever have bad dreams?”
For a second he had the impression that Tir wanted to say something else, that there was an immediate answer, one Tir did not let escape. In the end, his fairy just rested an arm on one drawn-up knee, flexible and pensive. “Doesn’t everyone, sometimes? Is yours about the Quest?”
“I think so. And my father, a little.”
“Oh, stars,” Tir said. “Oliver, you know he’d be proud of you, right? You’re a good person, and a loyal Heir.” He said it seriously, not teasing.
“I think…I mean, I want to think so. It’s just…it’s more that…you know how the Quest changed their lives. My parents.”
“Yes, for one thing, they met and had children. One of whom is evidently debating the merits of tradition.”
“I’m not. We’re going on the Quest. It’s just…”
“You don’t want to?”
“I don’t,” Oliver said, and now he’d said it aloud, in the night, in his familiar room, to his familiar bed-posts and water-jug and Tir’s antique-silver eyes. “Everything will change. And I don’t want anything to change.”
He knew he was whining. He knew he sounded young and foolish and selfish, wanting his world to stay easy, wanting his life the way it was. But he did want that, here in the dark.
Tir didn’t say anything for a second, and then scooted over, leaned in, let their shoulders touch. “I know you don’t like change. I mean I know you truly don’t; it’s the same way you don’t like formal audiences. It’s difficult for you, in a way it’s not for some people, like, oh, your mother.”
Oliver swallowed around the Quest-shaped lump in his throat. Nodded. Tir knew him so well. Better than anyone. Ever.
“But,” Tir said, “it’ll be all right. No, listen: I’m not just saying that.” He put a hand on Ollie’s knee, a small weight, an anchor. “Yes, some things will change. But not everything. We’ll come home again—unless something really truly exceptional occurs, Oliver, you’ll always come home here. You’re the Heir. So you’ll come home, and your family will be here—you’ll have your life. You might have a new addition—the person you’re meant to help, to love, and you’ll love them, so that’ll be good, and they’ll be part of your life as well. Even more family for you.”
“Like you,” Ollie said. “You’ll be here too.”
Tir’s smile came and went, and some trick of shadow made it look sad. “I’m always here to help you.”
“It’s not just that,” Oliver said, looking at Tir’s calm eyes, “it’s that—you know there’s no promise, no guarantee—my father died, Tir, he and my mother found True Love and then he died—”
“And they’d been married and in love for years,” Tir interrupted softly, “and they had the kind of family that made everyplace a home. That gave me a home, when I was—sent here. That kind of love—that’s worthwhile, Oliver. That was a happy ending, for a Quest. I think if you asked your mother, she’d say so.”
“Maybe,” Oliver whispered, because a whisper was all he could manage. “Maybe.”
“And I promise yours will be a happy story as well.” Tir squeezed his knee, lifted the hand away. “I know it will be.”
“Fairy magic?”
