AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I didn’t make you drink the scary purple mead,” Oliver had yawned, “you did that on your own,” and tumbled into sleep fully dressed.
He’d been thinking about that first sentence—the unusually revealing one, not the obvious attempt to blame the hangover of death on Oliver—on and off, not continuously but intermittently, ever since. It won’t be hard? What won’t be?
They’d all taken guesses in secret. Oliver, his siblings, even his mother. Wondering about their adopted fairy-brother. Coming up with ever more outlandish theories. Making it a game, though that’d been years ago.
Glancing at Tir—his best friend, the man who’d come along on Oliver’s Vision Quest despite unspoken personal concerns over magical distress—as they swung back into the saddle, he felt ashamed. He felt guilty.
He wanted to apologize, but he didn’t know how. He did not even know where to begin.
They went on. The air murmured cool and dry against his skin. Sun and shadow dappled the fields, the road.
North. Toward, though not into, Fairyland. The edges, though. The Territories, where nobody—not human, at least—lived. Where gryphons and dragons and walking trees and singing rock-roses were said to wander. Where marvels happened, and where a Seeing Pool might show someone their fate, if found and asked.
Oliver let himself get distracted from thinking about Tir by thoughts about the Pool. About mysteries, and destinies. He knew the histories, but the Quest was never the same twice. He did not know what he might expect, and started to give himself a headache thinking from dwelling on it.
They made good time, for the first day. Neither of them minded sleeping out of doors, under the big firework shimmer of stars, at the edge of a pale cluster of birch trees, among sweet grass. That was familiar, too; they’d been camping before, many times.
Tir had brought a small collapsible pan, and they were only a day and a night out; supper involved roasted carrots and parsnips, sausages, small sweet potatoes, buttery dense bread rolls, and even two chocolate biscuits. Ollie was good at making a fire, the horses settled in contentedly, and the evening felt warm, cozy, familiar.
Except for the looming destiny. The headache. The Quest.
Tir said, “Are you all right?”
“Oh. Yeah. Sorry.” Oliver shook himself. “Thinking too much.”
“Well, stop that.”
“Just stop thinking. Done.”
“You could sketch something. Or keep a journal. For posterity.”
“Do you want me to leave you alone so you can read?” Of course Tirian had brought a book, a travel-sized dense compilation of improbable romances.
“Not necessarily.” Tir set the book aside. Hearty firelight brushed his face, turning his skin to amber. “What were you thinking about?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I mean…I guess this is how True Love works, for my family? I see the person, whoever it is, I ride to their rescue, save them from whatever Deadly Peril it is, a big romantic grand gesture…and that’s what you do for someone you love, right? Show up at the right time, the right place, to help them? And you fall into each other’s arms?”
“I suppose,” Tir said. “Does only metaphorical falling need to be involved, or should we find you a convenient tree root to trip on?”
“You’ve never been in love,” Oliver retorted, as loftily as he could manage. “Not like that, anyway. Where you just catch a glimpse of the person—eyes meeting across a crowded room—”
“—or in a magical Seeing Pool—”
“—thank you, shut up—or seeing even the back of their head, the movement of a hand, and you just know, y’know, like fireworks, even if you’ve never talked to them before. That doesn’t matter. Whether you’ve even met them. It’s all sort of champagne and sparkles. At first sight.”
Tir was quiet for a second; Oliver wondered why. He did not think Tirian had ever had feelings for anyone here, in this very human non-magical land, but—
But he didn’t know. Not with complete unbreakable certainty.
All at once he wondered why he didn’t know. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t talked about attractive persons; Ollie had complained to Tir endlessly about the excruciating indifference of Lady Katherine, for instance, back when they’d been younger and that’d felt like the end of the world; and there’d been a visiting viscount or two, and that blacksmith…
Tir had generally agreed as far as aesthetic attractiveness, and had not said a word, ever, indicating any particular desire to leap into bed or a bluebell clearing or a nicely appointed pleasure-room with anyone. Oliver had always vaguely thought that perhaps Tir just couldn’t or didn’t find humans interesting in that specific way.
Maybe he’d been wrong. Tir’s complicated silence, lasting a heartbeat longer than expected, seemed to argue as much. But—
But Tir would’ve told him, in that case. They shared everything.
Didn’t they?
