Oooh, yes, see what you're doing to my batshit shipper brain? I hadn't even considered that once he rescues her - that maybe he doesn't have the courage, conviction, understanding, to go rescue her until that last time they meet, until he knows there will be no more times to come, and then, they're both finally at the same point? (Even if they then go off on adventures and have glorious fun messing up their timelines again!) That perhaps this death is instead a waypoint, a midpoint, a resting point that really just catapults them into the next chapter? Indeed, my batshit shipper brain loves this muchly.

But I know what you mean, I don't think we'll see it, and I think I can even handle that, because I feel so much better that there are mythological and fairytale themes that can argue just as strongly that this is transitory as that it's permanent?

Because yes, the symbolism of the library and the storytelling, etc., really does massively help with things. Partly because there is symbolic satisfaction if not personal-for-the-character satisfaction, and also because it - I feel - totally vindicates our running with the symbolism-ball and yelling BUT I BELIEVE IT WILL BE THIS WAY! ;)