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Oh. That made sense. Tir was magic-sensitive; he’d never been bothered by good-hearted kindly-meant white-witch attempts at curing cattle, but he’d had nightmares for a week when the peddler with sadistic tendencies and a minor gift for love-spells had come to the closest village. He’d been the reason they’d figured that one out.
“Oh,” Oliver said aloud, understanding, thinking he understood. “Do you want to…would you rather not come?”
“I’m your fairy companion,” Tir pointed out, an echo of his own previous statement, with bonus withering sarcasm. “I accompany you.”
“Yeah, but if you’re—”
“Shut up, Oliver.”
“Ow, hey,” Oliver protested, “I was trying to be nice.”
Tir looked at him across the moonlit tower. Their telescope, older and outdated now, yearned voicelessly for the sky. It stood framed by the space between them. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I know. You’re too sweet for that.” He’d used the word once to describe his fairy for a printed broadside news sheet, eight years ago; Tir’d never let him live that one down.
“I’m not really,” Tir said, low enough to be only for himself. Oliver heard him because the tower was quiet, but said, “What?” anyway.
Tir said, “I’m coming with you because otherwise you’ll forget your own underclothes,” and Oliver agreed that this was probably true, and followed him downstairs, feeling vaguely as if he’d said the wrong words, not asked the right question, missed a step on the staircase somehow.
In the familiar years-old arrangement, his room was next to Tir’s, spiraling off the same branch of the East Tower. They didn’t have a connecting door but might’ve used one, as often as they ended up in each other’s rooms; Oliver wondered for the hundredth time why they’d never put one in. He said, “If you want to talk…”
“I’ve told you. I’m only worrying about it. Magic. But we can’t do anything about that, so leave the worrying to me.”
Ollie made a face at him. “I’m allowed to, too. Sometimes.”
“Don’t steal my job. You’re the hero, here. A prince on a quest. Go and get some sleep, and I’ll wake you in the morning.”
“Fine,” Ollie said, still wondering where he’d missed the footfall, walked past an opening. “I’ll…see you in the morning?”
Tir hesitated. Then flung him a smile, said, “We’re prepared. As you said. Good night, Oliver,” and touched Ollie’s arm, briefly, before vanishing into his own room.
The door shut. Ollie stared at it.
Despite the staring, the solid oak did not reopen.
Oliver sighed, and went into his own room, and nudged his door shut. He kicked off one boot, switched feet, and stopped, left boot partway removed.
Tir was magic-sensitive, yes. Tir might feel some discomfort, if inimical magic happened to be one of the three mysterious obstacles. Tir might’ve been embarrassed to admit a potential liability, himself in pain or distress.
But that wasn’t anything the family didn’t already know. It might even be useful: awareness of upcoming danger. Either way strategic sense would dictate that Tirian would tell him, if that’d been the cause of the worry.
So why the quietness?
So why the omission?
He couldn’t call it a lie—Tirian had never, not in years of growing up entwined with each other, lied to him. Small polite stretching-of-truth, maybe; Oliver was certain that yes he did look terrified as hell before every royal address he was expected to give, no matter what his fairy told him. But nothing important.
Nothing potentially life-affecting.
Maybe Tir was scared, he thought, successfully kicking off the boot. It hit the floor and toppled over. It was a terrible metaphor for his life.
He hated the idea that Tirian would keep that from him, hated it with a virulence that astounded him as it twisted in his gut; but he did understand. If Tir didn’t know precisely how proximity to wild magic might affect him, of course he’d be scared, and Oliver knew how deep the insidious irrational claws of anxiety could sink.
Tir, being afraid. Tir, being uncertain. That was…something new. Oliver wasn’t sure he liked it.
He’d just have to be there for Tir, he concluded, falling into bed. Not like that’d be a hardship. Not like they’d not been each other’s shoulders their whole lives. He’d just have to be more subtle about it. If Tir was embarrassed to admit to being afraid.
Solution reached, he closed his eyes, and resolved to be as nice as he could to Tir in the morning, and every day of the quest thereafter.
