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Tir said, “Remind me why your people have memorials, after a funeral?”
“What on earth are you reading? Give me that!”
“No.” Tir held the evening’s pocket romance at arm’s length, and batted Ollie’s hand away. “It’s honestly amazing. It’s the True and Tragical Tale of the Downfall of Lady Henrietta Vane. Fifty pages in, she’s buried both parents after a carriage accident—which robbed her of her memory, both long- and short-term, except for her name and the conviction that it was her fault—”
“That’s not how memory works!”
“—and she’s been married, widowed, and seduced by a notorious outlaw and ravished in the woods, where she is presently starving and contemplating morality and mortality. I expect ominous wolves at any moment.”
“There is no way that can possibly be a true history. Or tragical tale. Or whatever you said it was.” Ollie gave up on taking the novel for himself. “Anyway that’s a morbid question and also you know the answer.” Or he should; Tir had been present for not only his father’s memorial but a few state attendances for respected nobility, as well as standing shoulder to shoulder with friends among the castle’s villagers from time to time.
They’d had that talk. Sort of. Tir had had to think about the concept of not existing, instead of simply taking on a new form, a tree or a stone or a whisper of breeze; that’d been an interesting stumbling-block in a few history and literature lessons, when they’d been younger. Most of Bellemare’s population believed to varying degrees in the old faith about a choice of reward, a starry heaven or a deep peace in the earth, but definitely not in any shape that could still talk or interact with the present world. The memorial was a ceremony of closure, of moving on.
Ollie’d been in no shape to handle another round of that metaphysical discussion the first time around, in the anguish of grief and of loss, in the wreck of everything. He was pretty sure Tir’d asked one of the palace cooks about memorial etiquette.
That’d been after the reality, of course. After his father’s death, and what Tir had tried to do, and hadn’t been able to do, for him.
He knew why Tir hadn’t asked him to explain human customs, then.
“I was only wondering if you’d—” Tir paused, redirected thoughts. “It’s not important.”
“If I’d what?”
“It doesn’t matter. Really not important.” Followed by, more like musing aloud than anything Tirian had meant to say, “I was wondering what you’d do for me,” and then, hastily, “if something like a carriage accident occurred.”
“Which isn’t going to happen—”
“Well, logically, it could—”
“And you can’t use Lady Henrietta as an argument.” Oliver felt sudden pain in his hand; surprised, he realized he’d made a fist, dug nails into a palm. Tir shouldn’t be asking—shouldn’t be thinking about—
It wouldn’t happen. He’d throw himself in front of the carriage first. Tir wouldn’t—wouldn’t—couldn’t not be around. Unthinkable. Nonsense. No sense.
He muttered to the fire, which crackled and snapped at him, “It’s a stupid question.”
“Ah,” Tir said, only that, and went back to the misadventures of Lady Henrietta, not looking at him anymore.
The not-looking felt cold. Lonely. Deliberate: he’d said something wrong or clumsy, and Tir didn’t want to talk anymore, and even hearty leaping flames couldn’t heat his body.
He looked up at Tir. Who turned a page, intent, absorbed.
He looked back into the fire, until his eyes watered.
He said, “Memorials are for—for remembering. Um. Comfort. Humans leaning on humans. I know you don’t think about it like that.”
“I remember that much.” Tir lowered the book, gave him a smile: cheerful or an excellent fakery thereof. “I was only thinking that in this fictional case it doesn’t appear to’ve been much comfort. But then again she’s buried one husband already, quite possibly having murdered him, so—”
“I thought you said it was a tragedy!”
“For her husbands it is. Judging by the chapter titles she’s going to go through at least three.”
“Well,” Ollie said, “at least she’s ambitious. Don’t touch that.” Tir had reached for a branch to throw onto the fire. “Don’t touch…things.”
“My hands,” Tir said, “are completely, inarguably, unequivocally, fine. Do you want to check?”
“Yes!”
The answer bounced off the fire-flames. Rang from book-pages and tree-trunks. Startled them both with its sincerity.
