Disclaimer: D.J. MacHale owns the Pendragon books, not me.
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Out of all Bobby Pendragon's dreams, dreams of another life laced with fire and deception and battle cries, she was the one that visited him most often. She was the one that left him feeling like he was missing something when he awoke to the life Press had said he'd been rewarded, the only one that had seemed real until now.
"But they weren't dreams, were they?" he now says softly to the princess he'd supposedly found in the rain of a different world, the girl he had a vague memory of kissing in the wake of devastation. "They were memories."
The two of them, Loor and Pendragon, stand face to face again at last, the soil of Solara beneath their shuffling feet, youthful and enlightened once more.
She really is beautiful, Bobby, or simply Pendragon, as the dreams call him, thinks. Neither the dreams nor the journals did her justice.
He reaches out to her, just to prove she is real and not just another elusive imagining, and to his surprise, she lets him run his fingertips across her strong but beautiful jaw.
"I am real, Pendragon," she says with a wistful smile. "That I know for certain. It is you I am not sure about."
Pendragon grins lopsidedly, his hand lowering and brushing the scar above her heart that was never there before, one long and jagged and barely visible beneath the straps of her Batu armor, the outfit of her prime. "Is that how you…?" he cannot say the words aloud; based on the life he is starting to recall with more and more clarity, Loor's death surely does not exist.
She nods slowly.
"I brought you back to life once." he whispers reverently, the words he can hardly believe are true like a spell, a spell so intricate and ornate it will be broken if his voice is too loud.
"I know." her voice is under the enchantment, too. "It was a beautiful life, was it not?"
"You mean besides the parts where we almost died?"
She almost laughs. "Yes, Pendragon, besides those parts."
"Yeah. It really was."
"I am glad, however, that we were permitted to experience both."
"Me, too." he clears his throat awkwardly, remembering something. "How was Bokka when you… left?"
Loor looks away, saddened. "Before my own knife clawed out my life, you mean?" She sighs. "Bokka was killed in battle long ago. Eventually I was eager for sleep to claim me, so I could get to him. And to you, Pendragon. No matter what, you were always there when my eyes closed."
Pendragon was quiet for a moment. "Your own knife?" he asks hesitantly.
Loor nods gravely, adjusting the strap of her armor so her could no longer see the scar her death left, so soon after the journals arrived for the travelers.
"Mine, too." Pendragon whispers, and the realization that has been there all along hits him then.
"It is a coincidence we both arrived here within such a short time of each other." Loor replies, saying exactly what Pendragon has just been mulling over.
Bobby Pendragon shakes his head, totally certain of what happened. "No, Loor. No coincidences." He pulls his sleeve down to reveal a scar nearly identical to hers, right above the heart she's taken. He smiles at her sadly, knowing that their eagerness to slip into their dreams got the best of them. "But I only know that because I had to read Romeo and Juliet in high school."