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Hmm. Well, Tirian was a fairy; presumably magic knew magic. And Tir didn’t lie to him.
Something nameless and lonely poked at his chest.
He looked back at the Seeing Pool, which should be showing him the person he was meant to save and treasure and love. Waters lapped upward; shapes formed, hazy at first, then blurring into a recognizable setting.
The setting was the royal library; he saw that much, and he liked the idea that that’d be his future, cozy and book-paneled and comfortable at the heart of his kingdom. A good foreshadowing. Had to be.
He hovered closer as a figure strolled into view, wandered over to a shelf, plucked a book down, beamed at the title page.
Oliver knew that figure. Slightly longer hair, silver pins holding rich dark loops of it; obviously a few years older, from the unfamiliar cut of clothing, different boots. But he knew that wide unfurling pirate’s smile, that head-tilt at a book-friend.
Okay. Of course Tirian would be in his future.He wanted Tir in his future.
It was reassuring, he decided: however this quest played out, whomever he ended up with, Tir would always be at his side. In his library; and he had to grin. That was the life he wanted. Yes.
He wondered when the unknown Prince or Princess would be revealed. He stared into the water. He was prepared. He hoped so, anyway.
Someone entered the library, in the vision. Tir turned, lit up, laughed at whatever the person’d said. Taller than him, albeit only by an inch or so, and also male, at least based on clothing and shoulders and gait; clearly someone he knew well, from the delight in those eyes. Ollie couldn’t quite see.
The scene shifted: as if he wasn’t getting it, as if he needed some hand-holding. No longer the future: the past, he understood, as Tir’s hair and clothing altered. Still in the library—naturally—but a moment he recalled: roughly three years ago, the first day of the annual spring festival. Tir was reading now, curled up in an enormous royal-purple chair and absorbed in a story. Which meant that at any second—
Oliver—the memory-Oliver—bounced into the scene. Ollie, observing, couldn’t hear his own voice, but no need: the day came flooding back in a rush. Memory-him lunged over the back of the chair and ruffled Tir’s hair; Tir jumped, dropped the book, scowled like an insulted panther. Hey, Oliver said, come on, spring fair’s today, Scarlet Hood plays, festival dancers, ale, acrobats, it’ll be fun, let’s go!
Tir sat up, the way he always did when Ollie proposed some random excursion. Oliver, watching, could hear him saying yes, fine, why not, you had me at Scarlet Hood plays, and starting to grin.
Memory-Oliver bent down to pick up Tir’s fallen book, handing it back with an apology and a joke: Some fairy you are, can’t even sense a clumsy human coming?
I was reading, Tir answered with a smile, and I’m too used to you to notice. Go on, I’ll put this back and meet you downstairs.
Okay! Memory-Oliver bounded out the door. Endless enthusiasm. Ale-drinking and spring festival merriment ahead.
Oliver’s own memory, of course, went with him. But not here. Here the Seeing Pool lingered on Tir: on the way he touched the cover of that book, the spot where Oliver’s fingers rested when handing it back. Tir gazed toward the library door, and smiled again: a fond smile, a sad smile, one that Oliver had never seen.
The vision went black.
The world went red.
In the ravine, outside of visions and his spinning head, Tir was shouting his name. And the great onyx lump of the dragon was moving, opening jaws, not quite dead because Tir told him to cut off its head and he hadn’t listened—
And the fire roared up in one last awful burst—
Ollie’s fingers scrambled for his sword, which wasn’t there, having been ineffectually left in a dragon’s heart—
Tir pushed him aside. Ollie fell ungracefully into the Seeing Pool, which splashed. Shards of broken vision tumbled around him like scorched snow.
The dragon breathed fire and ash. Oliver, paralyzed, couldn’t move, couldn’t even think.
Tir stepped in front of him. Magic flickered up into a shield: insubstantial, brave, foolhardy bright blue. Showers of sparks against ancient dragon-flame.
Tir, who had never practiced much magic—never in all the years he’d lived with them, never until now—did not have a chance.
Oliver, shoved out of the way, unarmed, heard someone screaming. Not the person standing in flame. Himself.
Tir only carried knives. He muttered one or two words, even as his last heroic shield-sparks went out. As they died. As his hair, his skin—
Tir threw a knife. Unerring aim: into the dragon’s throat, into burgeoning eruptions. The world imploded. White-hot ribbons in the sky, burning blue tongues. Slithering scales and crashing rumbles of collapsing ground—
And then silence, and dark.
