Come On Amy, Light My Fire

"I have something that could help," said Amy weakly. She pulled the small lighter out of her pocket.

Fred looked at it uneasily. He still did not completely trust this strange dark- skinned girl who called herself Amy--clearly she came from a far-off land, and while she did not seem to want to harm him, she still might wield strange powers. Still, it was his duty as a true knight to protect her sisters. "What manner of thing is that?" he asked.

"Um, that's a lighter." Amy looked into Lord Fred's strong, fierce dark blue eyes, and realized for the first time that she really was dealing with some kind of pseudo- medieval knight who would have no idea what a pocket lighter was. Her spirits shrank. Why couldn't Rami have been the one who'd stayed conscious? (Though it felt odd to think of the girl who lay naked on the sands as Rami, though she clearly was, since she definitely wasn't the sister that Amy had known for so long.) She read enough fantasy novels to be better at knowing what kind of bull to use. "Um, it's a machine," she said. "It uses friction to light a fire using a flammable fuel. Have you ever heard of Greek fire?"

"I have heard of no such thing, but I have heard of legends that the Tetrilonians had a liquid which they could set on fire and threw on enemy ships. Is this fuel of your... machine similar?"

"Kind of, yes. It doesn't really work as a weapon or anything, the fire's too small, but you can light fires with it. On the other hand, it's gotten kind of soggy, so I don't know if it'll work."

Fred pondered this. "Very well then. You should try."

As Amy held the lighter, she realized that something had been nagging at her since she'd first seen him. It then clicked in her mind just where it had been. It was silly, but it had to be the case. Her eyes narrowed. "Wait a minute, we've met before! You were that one guy my sister was dating, weren't you?" [1196]

"What are you talking about?" said a shocked Fred. "I've never seen you or either of your sisters before in my life."

Amy then remembered all the nonsense with the alternate universes, and realized that this Fred was somewhat older than the one she remembered. "Oh, right, sorry. You can't be him, he was younger. But he did look a lot like you."

"Perhaps it was my brother, Jarlath?" said Fred, a note of uncertain hope entering his voice. "He became a mage even though it is discouraged in noble families like mine in Allaria. He disappeared several years ago, when he was but a child. Some say that he was destroyed by magickal fires with which he meddled, but some say that he fled the kingdom to go to foreign lands--he was a quite precocious child."

"No, that wasn't his name," said Amy. She really hoped that Rami would come to soon so that she could think of some kind of consistent story to tell him. Then again, she wasn't sure how Rami would react to seeing the alternate universe counterpart of her boyfriend. Or maybe they'd broken up in this other Rami's universe--after all, her sister's romances had often been spectacular but brief. Well, she had a fire to light for now.

1. Amy successfully lights the fire.
2. Unfortunately, the lighter had gotten waterlogged.
3. At that moment, Rami comes to.

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