A Glimmer of Hope

"What do you mean, unless I finish your mission?" Oleandra said in confusion. "I'm not sure how it works for Fairies, but humans can't come back to life just like that. It's been like fifteen hundred years, right? Your King Arthur might have reincarnated in the meantime."

It suddenly occurred to Oleandra that Merlin cursing her soul might not have just been to be mean; from the sight of all her past selves standing before her, Oleandra had come to the obvious conclusion that Fairies possessed ancestral memories of their past lives. By preventing the Lady of the Lake's future incarnations from gaining the experiences and viewpoints of those that had come before her, the current incarnation, Oleandra, had gained perspective on what it truly meant to be human.

Viviane not truly understanding humanity was what had caused her to become estranged from her sister in the first place; she had forced Anna into the villain's role, in which she could hurt the one that she had grown to hate more than anything; could she really be blamed for finishing the job?

"Do you know about the Tales of Beedle the Bard?" Viviane suddenly said.

Of course, Oleandra knew about them; they were children's stories for Wizards. Her father had read them to her and Daphne before bedtime countless times when they were very young. But they were just that: stories. What did they have to do with anything?

"They're just children's fairytales," Oleandra answered.

"Don't all myths have roots in reality?" Viviane insisted. "For instance; take the tale of the Warlock's Hairy Heart."

"What about it?" Oleandra said, as she remembered the details. "It's the story of some Wizard who removed his own heart in order to become as cold and logical as a computer. He ends up getting engaged to a beautiful Witch, because of societal obligations. Upon realizing that his heart had grown withered and hairy from disuse, he went mad and stole his fiancée's heart to replace his own. The end."

"I'm fairly certain I'm the Witch from the story, though I think that the tale got a little distorted over time," Viviane said with a small smile. "It's the other way around; I was forced into a loveless marriage by my human parents, so I used a bit of Fairy magic to steal his heart. With his heart in the palm of my hand, I utterly dominated his mind, so he wasn't an issue afterwards. I'll teach you how to do it later."

Right; it was best not to expect human morals from an immortal Fairy, was it?

"You didn't happen to turn one of your nephews into a Dwarf, did you?" Oleandra asked, remembering one of her Dementor-induced nightmares. "Was it one of Anna's sons, or one of your human siblings' sons?"

"Anna's," Viviane answered. "Gawain, the Round Table knight of the sun. He must have been distracted that day, because he failed to greet me properly when we crossed by each other on the road. As punishment, I transfigured him into a Dwarf for a few months; he learned his lesson."

Wow. No wonder Morgan le Fay also hated her sister. Selfish, vindictive and inhumanly capricious; she could see a little of herself in Viviane, and she didn't like that one bit. Oleandra resolved to become a better person from now on… or at least try.

"Right," Oleandra finally said. "And what do the Tales of Beedle the Bard got to do with anything?"

"It has everything to do with it," Viviane insisted. "There's a certain story in the book: the Tale of the Three Brothers. It predates even Beedle's book, which is a collection of old stories; and this particular legend was already known back in my days."

Oleandra recalled all she knew about the story: three brothers, Wizards, wanted to cross a river. They conjured a bridge, but halfway across, Death itself stopped them. Travelers usually drowned in said river, so it felt like it had been cheated out of three souls. Death knew that their magical powers would protect them from whatever Final Destination schemes it tried on them, so it instead tried to trick them into precipitating their own deaths.

To the eldest brother, Death gave an invincible wand of elder wood; which promptly got him killed due to his overconfidence, after he foolishly forgot to set up wards before going to bed in an inn after murdering a bloke and boasting about his new super-extra-special-wand.

To the second brother, Death gave a stone that allowed him to recall the dead to the living. He used it to bring back his dead girlfriend, but she proved to be too depressing for him, causing him to unalive himself.

To the youngest, and wisest brother, Death gave his own Cloak of Invisibility™, who used it to peek into the women's washroom for many years, until he grew too old to enjoy such pleasures. He ended up surrendering himself to the authorities.

"I'm pretty sure that's how it went," Oleandra told Viviane after recounting her the above paragraphs.

"I'm fairly certain your father added that last part, though," Viviane said. "I remember how you used to be terrified to use public bathrooms when you were younger."

"In any case, how do you know the story's real?" Oleandra asked, blushing slightly.

"I know that the Elder Wand is real from first-hand experience," Viviane hissed. "Because Anna murdered me with it!"

"And if the Elder Wand's real, then so must the other two items also be real," Oleandra completed. "Do you even know what they look like?"

"I know exactly what the Elder Wand looks like," Viviane said. "If you get a close look at it, I'll recognize it immediately. As for the other two, I've got no idea. But I do know that they are known as the Deathly Hallows, and that whoever possesses all three will become the master of Death itself."

"I think you're grasping at straws," Oleandra remarked, "But I'll keep an eye open."

"And once you've got all three, or at least the resurrection stone," Viviane continued, "You can revive Arthur, and he can get on with saving Britain from the Saxons."

"It'll be fairly difficult getting all the Anglo-Saxons out, though," Oleandra remarked. "They make up like, 40% of the population, or something like that. And we're not really at war any more."

"In that case, to fulfil the prophecy, we only need to unite Britain again," Viviane said pensively. "Or at the very least, Logres' former territories: in Britain, we already have Camelot's lands, Orkney, Caledonia, Cameliard, Wales, Tintagel and Horsa… So we only need Armorica, Vannes, Gaunes, Benoic and Aquitaine. Oh, and Ireland."

"I recognize a few of those names," Oleandra said. "You're not seriously proposing to invade Ireland and bits of France, are you? The United Kingdoms are already united— more or less— so it should be fine, don't you think?"

"Fine, then," Viviane snapped. "Then we'll just bring magic back to the land."

"There's the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy!" Oleandra cried. "The entire magical world would turn on us if we revealed the existence of magic here!"

"Well, one of these is easier to achieve than the others…" Viviane said with a sly smile.

"You can forget about it!" Oleandra snapped. "Let me out of here!"