[ dextera can’t take his laptop far, but he’s on the bottom floor of his little house when he hears saber… land…? in his yard. leliel is sitting in his lap, since she’s not the one taking care of this egg, and so when he goes out to meet saber it’s with a fluffy but maidenly chicken in his arms.
[ Saber jogs over to said coop and peeps into it. The egg in question gives a meek little kick, and Saber startles slightly as if kicked herself. There's no chick forthcoming quite yet though, so... ]
All we can do is wait. The chick will emerge on its own.
[ ............. She assumes.
She lowers herself to sit on her knees, her eyes still glued to the egg. Fight hard, little chick...! ]
Sit with me, Dextera. This will be a sight to treasure.
[ to emerge, he means. dextera wants to reach out and touch the little delicate shell, to help peel away the egg so that the chick can free itself, but even he knows that it’s a bad idea.
so he crouches next to saber, too, balancing himself by placing his palms flat on the ground. ]
[ The moment Saber leaves her house on [Random Day Before Trees Happen], Mordred springs out from behind the nearest wall and puts her hands on her hips. ]
I've come to give you my report, King Arthur!
[ Her proclamation wouldn't have been out of place back in Camelot... except she's reporting on a book, not the state of the kingdom, and she's still wearing Saber's clothes, not just her face. ]
[ So that's where Mordred was hiding today. To the casual observer, Saber's reaction to someone ambushing her the moment she stepped out of her house might be unusual in that she has no reaction at all, but in the tiny microcosm that is this not-family, such interactions are as common as their blonde hair.
Anyway, Saber pauses to close the door behind her (why inflict any of this on her housemate) before looking at Mordred. She's just had breakfast, so her belly is full and warm; she's in as good a mood as she'll ever be. She regards Mordred openly, not yet expecting their interaction this morning to be completely stupid. ]
First of all, it was stupid and boring! Never make me read that crap again! I mean, rocks as medicine? Who really thought that putting a dumb stone on your face would cure anything? I'm glad I never had to use a healer!
And who even cares about the history of rocks? If you throw one at someone, it hurts! If you bash something against one, it breaks! That's all that matters!
[ She rants for a while longer here, but I'm too lazy even though I made you give me a subject for her to read about. It's clear that she read the book, though, and thoroughly at that. After she finishes up with an angry exclamation: ]
But in the end, I still managed to defy you, father! I didn't read just your book, but another whole bunch of them as well! As usual, I acted completely against your expectations! How's that for being resourceful?
[ Oh, right. She did give Mordred a book to read, didn't she. Saber puts on her impassive King Arthur face and filters most of the report out, having no actual interest in rocks or their history. What matters is that Mordred read it in its entirety, which must be undeniably true because this rant feels like it's longer than the text itself. It was the vocabulary that was important, the vocabulary.
She tunes back in for the end, though... and wonders how Mordred doing extra credit is supposed to defy orders. ]
And what were the other books about?
[ She's mildly interested in knowing what Mordred would pick out for herself... ]
[ She just grabbed them at random... she was too stupid to actually look at them first, or to stop when she got bored. ]
I didn't read them because I cared! I was sure you expected me to ignore your orders, so I surprised you by doing even more work! What do you think about that?
But the fact that she read even more books that she hated, essentially punishing herself above and beyond what Saber intended for her, is in a way... admirable? No, that's much too strong a word. It was a mark of tenacity, if nothing else. ]
[ When Saber next sleeps, she will see thousands of moments compressed into shards of memories. The first few are indistinct: a child who babbles to the walls, a child without a home, a family that abandoned her.
The ones that are clear are visions of a small girl, her hair platinum blonde and ratty. She curls up in the corner of a dimly-lit room, a cold stone flooring as her bed. She talks to the air, softly, as though she’s ashamed. She says she speaks to ghosts no one else can see. She's told that that’s why she was abandoned. She meets one in the dark of night: a tiny purple spirit who looks like a plush toy, his head covered by a giant top hat complete with a red bow on the top. He calls himself Bienfu, and says he’ll stay with her. Her first friend.
The next: The same girl underneath the yellow lights of the stage, the center of a circus ring underneath the big top. In the corner, the ringleader strokes his mustache, and announces in a booming voice, ”Come one, come all! See a rare wonder of the world! She can command the wind, move objects with her mind, and see into your heart! Come see Magillanica, the little witch!”
Visitors, onlookers, gawkers. Some curious, some intrigued, but most disgusted, horrified by her powers, by the words she speaks to nothing at all. "That witch freaked me out," a child says. "Let’s come back to the freak show again!"
The troupe’s popularity skyrockets. Their names are known across the country. They’re rich beyond their wildest imaginations. Magillanica’s performance goes on night after night, until the kingdom hears tell of her witchcraft.
The girl, tried for heresy, subjected to brutal punishment. The girl, broken and homeless and empty.
A carriage crash. Flames. The little girl trapped amongst the wreckage, the searing heat scorching her skin, her small body wracked with ashen coughs. The troupe, the ringmaster, the performers dead and strewn at her body under the smoke, and the remains of her entire world coalesced into darkness in the corners of her vision. Bienfu tries to pull her out, but his little arms can’t reach, and he cries for her when she can no longer cry for herself.
The last thing she sees in the shadows is the outline of a person standing at the edge of the crash. A white robe, a giant hat, a long white beard. He might look like an old, wise sage, but to her, he looks like safety.
[ In the last, most vivid moment, the girl is years older. Her back is straight, her demeanor professional and stoic. Gone is the child who performed as a soothsayer for the entertainment of others, to be an object of revulsion and hate for the populace. As she is now, Magillanica has been transformed from a worthless girl who talked to ghosts into a Legate of the Abbey.
The man who rescued her from the wreckage - Melchior, she calls him - stands before her, scrutinizing her with frozen compassion. She looks to him like a daughter looks to her father. His gaze is much less kind, much more professional. “This is the final trial,” he says, stroking his beard. “Sever your ties with your past. When you return, the Shepherd will have his shadow.”
Magillanica nods. Her expression is fierce, but she bites her lip. This is what she wants, isn’t it? She wants to be useful. She wants to perform her duties. She wants her father to love her. Yet she has never been able to perform to his standards, and the hesitation is plain on her face. Her job will be to do what no one else in the Abbey can, to work for the Shepherd to keep him free from malevolence. But an imperfect child can only create imperfect results.
Magillanica is sent to a quaint village on the outskirts of civilization: brick houses, people greeting her as she walks by, families working together outside. Flowers line the paths she walks. She recites their names one by one. Melchior taught her their names as diligently as he had taught her illusion artes, a symbol of purity that humans have never possessed.
The town pulls at her heartstrings. Traces of recognition flitter through her, but slip her mind as easily as sand from her fingertips. She was here once, long ago, but she can’t guess why or when. Her task is… Her task...
She doesn’t know what her task is. She wanders aimlessly, until she comes upon a particular house. There’s nothing special about it, but her heart pulls her toward it, seeing comfort and warmth that she hadn’t known she’d needed for years. Inside the house is -
Her parents. The ones who abandoned her when she was a baby, crying and apologizing and whispering it’s okay and we’ll help you smile again. Her father gives her the birthday presents she’d missed. Her mother says she'll make all her favorite foods. She forgives them. All she’d ever wanted was love, a family, a purpose. Her parents embrace her, warm and comforting, and Magillanica glows with happiness, until -
Everything freezes. The color fades, the world spins, the arms around her go cold and unfeeling until they finally disappear, too. Magillanica whips around, the feeling in her chest an entirely new kind of fear. Her heart beats fast with utter despair. It’s fake. It’s all fake. It’s all an illusion, Melchior’s illusion, and she only realizes when it’s too late that he was testing whether or not she’d fall for it, whether she’d risk her ideals and reason to feel fleeting emotion. Her pulse skyrockets, her eyes widening with some subset of regret.
When the world stops spinning, vertigo sends her reeling. Melchior stands in front of her, his expression utterly unreadable. Magillanica has always been small in stature and presence both, and right now, she seems completely miniscule.
“Magillanica,” says Melchior. His voice is cutting amidst the tattered, broken remains of her heart: his words constrict around her throat, tear into her like thorns. It sounds like disappointment, and underneath it all, a frigid detachment that cuts her to the bone. “You truly are my greatest failure.”
Melchior turns and walks away, leaving her where she sits on skinned knees, the splintered remains of a person who might have once been loved but was never enough. Magillanica sobs until her body is broken and spent, and when he tears dry up, her eyes no longer reflect the light.
Where Magillanica once was is the tattered remains of a little girl from the circus, an empty shell who never had a family. What purpose does her life have if she’s failed? What reason does she have to care for a world that never cared for her?
She lays there, broken and soulless. Magillanica, the witch who talked to spirits, the next shadow of the Abbey, the little girl who never had a home, is abandoned once more. ]
The morning is quiet. There are no gawking people or raging flames, no feelings of dread or despair. It feels strangely peaceful following the fraught tangle of memories that lingers in her mind.
She's seen many tragic things in her lifetime -- and many times she contributed to them -- so the visions don't shock her so much as gnaw at her. For a child so young to endure such cruelty... is it a wonder that she should emerge scarred? Magilou's words the night of the dryad invasion now begin to make a great amount of sense. A miserable human who's ruled by a broken heart instead of mind. Saber could hardly have guessed a week ago.
And there's something there that resonates with her. Magillanica cast her entire lot, all of her happiness, with the man named Melchior, only to have it ripped away in an instant. How long did her grief last? Did it ever end? Those questions dig uncomfortably close to Saber's heart.
She rises from her bed slowly (blessedly, Wuxian isn't in the house) and carries on with her morning as usual. Normally, she would keep her visions of her Masters' memories to herself. They're exceedingly private things, and she tries not to make her Masters uncomfortable by raising their pasts to scrutiny. But Magilou did invite her to it, and Saber thinks that perhaps Magilou might benefit from speaking frankly about herself.
Either way, Saber was planning to pay Magilou a visit today. When the sun is high enough that Magilou is probably awake, Saber shimmies into their telepathic connection. ]
[ Thankfully, Magilou is awake by the time Saber contacts her. She wasn't sure exactly when Saber would decide to sleep, but she did welcome the intrusion into her memories, so she was expecting contact at some point. Whether this is about that or something else, Magilou responds with her typical whine whenever the subject of food comes up, like she hasn't eaten in weeks. ]
<< Ah! Caught me at my most vulnerable, like a cat pinning a mouse! Your dearest witch, with a grumbling stomach and an eye for an appetite! I think I might just starve without an intervention! >>
[ If she's overplaying her thespian side a bit, then she can hardly be blamed for that. Saber might know by now that her dramatics shift between fake and real, intertwining until even she can't tell where her feelings begin, but she has no other way to be quick on her feet. ]
<< So, in other words, no. You've got something? >>
[ Despite the rocky morning, Saber finds herself smiling at the sound of Magilou's voice. The soft, ashamed whispers of a child speaking to spirits in the night remain in the backdrop of her memory, but the Magilou of today takes precedence for now.
Saber also suffers (albeit more quietly) when her meals grow sparse. Whether Magilou's act is slightly exaggerated or fullblown melodrama, Saber identifies strongly with it. Three square meals a day with two snack breaks inbetween to tide her over: such has been her creed since discovering the wonders of the culinary arts a mere five and a half months ago. ]
<< I do. Freshly steamed fish with herbs and a boiled egg. I will be right there. >>
[ She doesn't wait to hear if Magilou wants the food or not, because she's getting it either way.
In slightly more time than usual (the food being especially delicate this time around), Saber touches down at Magilou's house with a small pot in one hand and a notebook in the other. ]
[ Freshly steamed fish...! A boiled egg! Saber is truly her savior these days! She'd probably starve without her, really. Magilou doesn't go looking for food all that often, but she's cared a bit more about her own well-being these days.
Hm.
Regardless, she wastes no time in flinging the door open when she sees Saber approach from the window. It's not enough force to take it off its hinges, but it does end up hitting the wall. Whoops. ]
There you are! Fresh breakfast can be a delicacy! Forgive me for indulging too often.
[ She gestures for Saber to pass through the entrance and join her. Saber's been here enough that she probably doesn't need the invitation, but anyway...
She's brought something else, though, and when Magilou sees the notebook, she changes from carefree to curious. Like her other emotional quickchanges, it's subtle, but the way she catches the notebook with a raised eyebrow is unmistakable. ]
[ So his journeys into the forest had been a failure after all, even if he had succeeded in at least assisting in finding the pages for the rest of the townsfolk. No doubt Saber had also acquired her page by now, and a part of him wonders what she had to sacrifice in the getting of it.
He wonders why he hadn’t done it sooner, on the off chance that she might forget this terrible memory he must now impart to her, as he stands upon her doorstep, once again risking Mordred’s ire by bypassing those wards. He’d yet to realize that Saber had been drifting here and there because of her roommate’s recent marriage, and so he comes upon her doorstep with all the grave tenacity and innocence of purpose of an invading army.
He still can’t help bowing at the sight of her—but there aren’t any witnesses around here anymore, right? ]
[ Surprise flashes across Saber's face at the sight of Tristan on her doorstep. Rarely does he take the initiative to seek her out, even in the best of times, and their last parting was slightly awkward. There must be something pressing at hand for him to come to her house. Technically, it's still her house. It's where she knows she'll be able to find a hot meal, at any rate, and that's the most important thing...
The surprise passes, and her expression smooths out to mild interest as she considers Tristan's bowed form. No one else is home at the moment (hence her prolonged stay today), so she abandons the need for secrecy as Tristan has. ]
Please forgive the intrusion, my king. I only needed to…discuss certain things with you.
[ And soon, before she leaves for…where? Fuyuki? The Throne? To wherever her new master is going? The question hangs upon his lips as he lifts his gaze to regard her fully, swallowing down the bile in his throat as he presses on: ]
And these are rather…grave.
[ By which he means she might want to sit down for this one, because the awkwardness is totally going to continue! ]
[ He's here on business, then. Of course. As Chroma has been swept up in what appears to be the road to an ending, the community has shifted in spirit. Unsurprising that prisoners given the keys to their shackles would find new motivation in the future suddenly set before them. There must be new developments every day now, both big and small. On the whole, it isn't surprising that Tristan is bringing one to her now.
Saber adopts an appropriately solemn mien. She knows how much he usually has to fight to look at her in the face, so the fact that he does so now underscores the gravity of his words. She steps back, permitting Tristan to enter the house so that they might have more privacy. It's much the same as always inside, but if one looks hard enough, there are traces of change: a new cushion here, stray knickknacks littered about there, slight displacements that don't quite disrupt the order of the residence, but which permeate it nevertheless. ]
Come in and speak freely. I have no other pressing business at the moment.
[ And she'll wait expectantly for him to elaborate, as she might expect a soldier to make a report. ]
[ The air of the place does feel different now, as if there might be someone else…nah. He follows her inside, grateful for the privacy, despite knowing that even a few not of Chaldea already know a little about the tale he is going to tell.
At least she seems prepared for it, but she’s stone-faced and stoic as always, so even he cannot say for certain. Would he cause a break in that façade should he reveal the truth about Camelot? Would it be worth it? Jeanne believed it would be, but…no. There’s no room for hesitation now. King Arthur had asked that he aspire to be someone of worth. Jeanne had told him that maybe he shouldn’t jump to conclusions regarding Saber’s feelings.
And now here he stands, once again torn between two women as before his death. ]
Before I begin…may I ask where you might return to, my king?
[ The answer should be obvious to him, since she’d told him about her participation in the Fuyuki Grail War. But so many things have changed since then, and if she could have her chance for happiness in another world… ]
[ Not a question she expected at this moment, but she can understand his curiosity. She answers readily and honestly, as she's always strived to do. ]
If she will have me, I first intend to continue serving my Master in her homeworld. I believe she may yet have a use for me.
[ And Saber has a few questions of her own she still needs answers to. Seeing the different ways in which other people live their lives is always an illuminating experience. There is wisdom yet for her to seek before she can rest as a spirit. ]
When my time there is done, I will return to Camlann Hill and go where the World bids me.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
#030066 | early may
Something is happening
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What do you see?
[ Another dragon attack? The forest closing in? Death about to rain down on them all?? ]
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The egg has a crack in it. It’s moving.
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I will be right there!
[ ... And no more than fifteen seconds later, Saber bursts onto Dextera's yard with a punch of wind. ]
I am here!
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he lets her drop. ]
In the coop… I don’t know what to do.
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All we can do is wait. The chick will emerge on its own.
[ ............. She assumes.
She lowers herself to sit on her knees, her eyes still glued to the egg. Fight hard, little chick...! ]
Sit with me, Dextera. This will be a sight to treasure.
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[ to emerge, he means. dextera wants to reach out and touch the little delicate shell, to help peel away the egg so that the chick can free itself, but even he knows that it’s a bad idea.
so he crouches next to saber, too, balancing himself by placing his palms flat on the ground. ]
What if it tries to escape too early…?
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I've come to give you my report, King Arthur!
[ Her proclamation wouldn't have been out of place back in Camelot... except she's reporting on a book, not the state of the kingdom, and she's still wearing Saber's clothes, not just her face. ]
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Anyway, Saber pauses to close the door behind her (why inflict any of this on her housemate) before looking at Mordred. She's just had breakfast, so her belly is full and warm; she's in as good a mood as she'll ever be. She regards Mordred openly, not yet expecting their interaction this morning to be completely stupid. ]
Good morning, Sir Mordred. Let me hear it.
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And who even cares about the history of rocks? If you throw one at someone, it hurts! If you bash something against one, it breaks! That's all that matters!
[ She rants for a while longer here, but I'm too lazy even though I made you give me a subject for her to read about. It's clear that she read the book, though, and thoroughly at that. After she finishes up with an angry exclamation: ]
But in the end, I still managed to defy you, father! I didn't read just your book, but another whole bunch of them as well! As usual, I acted completely against your expectations! How's that for being resourceful?
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She tunes back in for the end, though... and wonders how Mordred doing extra credit is supposed to defy orders. ]
And what were the other books about?
[ She's mildly interested in knowing what Mordred would pick out for herself... ]
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[ She just grabbed them at random... she was too stupid to actually look at them first, or to stop when she got bored. ]
I didn't read them because I cared! I was sure you expected me to ignore your orders, so I surprised you by doing even more work! What do you think about that?
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But the fact that she read even more books that she hated, essentially punishing herself above and beyond what Saber intended for her, is in a way... admirable? No, that's much too strong a word. It was a mark of tenacity, if nothing else. ]
I see. Good work.
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The ones that are clear are visions of a small girl, her hair platinum blonde and ratty. She curls up in the corner of a dimly-lit room, a cold stone flooring as her bed. She talks to the air, softly, as though she’s ashamed. She says she speaks to ghosts no one else can see. She's told that that’s why she was abandoned. She meets one in the dark of night: a tiny purple spirit who looks like a plush toy, his head covered by a giant top hat complete with a red bow on the top. He calls himself Bienfu, and says he’ll stay with her. Her first friend.
The next: The same girl underneath the yellow lights of the stage, the center of a circus ring underneath the big top. In the corner, the ringleader strokes his mustache, and announces in a booming voice, ”Come one, come all! See a rare wonder of the world! She can command the wind, move objects with her mind, and see into your heart! Come see Magillanica, the little witch!”
Visitors, onlookers, gawkers. Some curious, some intrigued, but most disgusted, horrified by her powers, by the words she speaks to nothing at all. "That witch freaked me out," a child says. "Let’s come back to the freak show again!"
The troupe’s popularity skyrockets. Their names are known across the country. They’re rich beyond their wildest imaginations. Magillanica’s performance goes on night after night, until the kingdom hears tell of her witchcraft.
The girl, tried for heresy, subjected to brutal punishment. The girl, broken and homeless and empty.
A carriage crash. Flames. The little girl trapped amongst the wreckage, the searing heat scorching her skin, her small body wracked with ashen coughs. The troupe, the ringmaster, the performers dead and strewn at her body under the smoke, and the remains of her entire world coalesced into darkness in the corners of her vision. Bienfu tries to pull her out, but his little arms can’t reach, and he cries for her when she can no longer cry for herself.
The last thing she sees in the shadows is the outline of a person standing at the edge of the crash. A white robe, a giant hat, a long white beard. He might look like an old, wise sage, but to her, he looks like safety.
She closes her eyes. ]
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The man who rescued her from the wreckage - Melchior, she calls him - stands before her, scrutinizing her with frozen compassion. She looks to him like a daughter looks to her father. His gaze is much less kind, much more professional. “This is the final trial,” he says, stroking his beard. “Sever your ties with your past. When you return, the Shepherd will have his shadow.”
Magillanica nods. Her expression is fierce, but she bites her lip. This is what she wants, isn’t it? She wants to be useful. She wants to perform her duties. She wants her father to love her. Yet she has never been able to perform to his standards, and the hesitation is plain on her face. Her job will be to do what no one else in the Abbey can, to work for the Shepherd to keep him free from malevolence. But an imperfect child can only create imperfect results.
Magillanica is sent to a quaint village on the outskirts of civilization: brick houses, people greeting her as she walks by, families working together outside. Flowers line the paths she walks. She recites their names one by one. Melchior taught her their names as diligently as he had taught her illusion artes, a symbol of purity that humans have never possessed.
The town pulls at her heartstrings. Traces of recognition flitter through her, but slip her mind as easily as sand from her fingertips. She was here once, long ago, but she can’t guess why or when. Her task is… Her task...
She doesn’t know what her task is. She wanders aimlessly, until she comes upon a particular house. There’s nothing special about it, but her heart pulls her toward it, seeing comfort and warmth that she hadn’t known she’d needed for years. Inside the house is -
Her parents. The ones who abandoned her when she was a baby, crying and apologizing and whispering it’s okay and we’ll help you smile again. Her father gives her the birthday presents she’d missed. Her mother says she'll make all her favorite foods. She forgives them. All she’d ever wanted was love, a family, a purpose. Her parents embrace her, warm and comforting, and Magillanica glows with happiness, until -
Everything freezes. The color fades, the world spins, the arms around her go cold and unfeeling until they finally disappear, too. Magillanica whips around, the feeling in her chest an entirely new kind of fear. Her heart beats fast with utter despair. It’s fake. It’s all fake. It’s all an illusion, Melchior’s illusion, and she only realizes when it’s too late that he was testing whether or not she’d fall for it, whether she’d risk her ideals and reason to feel fleeting emotion. Her pulse skyrockets, her eyes widening with some subset of regret.
When the world stops spinning, vertigo sends her reeling. Melchior stands in front of her, his expression utterly unreadable. Magillanica has always been small in stature and presence both, and right now, she seems completely miniscule.
“Magillanica,” says Melchior. His voice is cutting amidst the tattered, broken remains of her heart: his words constrict around her throat, tear into her like thorns. It sounds like disappointment, and underneath it all, a frigid detachment that cuts her to the bone. “You truly are my greatest failure.”
Melchior turns and walks away, leaving her where she sits on skinned knees, the splintered remains of a person who might have once been loved but was never enough. Magillanica sobs until her body is broken and spent, and when he tears dry up, her eyes no longer reflect the light.
Where Magillanica once was is the tattered remains of a little girl from the circus, an empty shell who never had a family. What purpose does her life have if she’s failed? What reason does she have to care for a world that never cared for her?
She lays there, broken and soulless. Magillanica, the witch who talked to spirits, the next shadow of the Abbey, the little girl who never had a home, is abandoned once more. ]
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The morning is quiet. There are no gawking people or raging flames, no feelings of dread or despair. It feels strangely peaceful following the fraught tangle of memories that lingers in her mind.
She's seen many tragic things in her lifetime -- and many times she contributed to them -- so the visions don't shock her so much as gnaw at her. For a child so young to endure such cruelty... is it a wonder that she should emerge scarred? Magilou's words the night of the dryad invasion now begin to make a great amount of sense. A miserable human who's ruled by a broken heart instead of mind. Saber could hardly have guessed a week ago.
And there's something there that resonates with her. Magillanica cast her entire lot, all of her happiness, with the man named Melchior, only to have it ripped away in an instant. How long did her grief last? Did it ever end? Those questions dig uncomfortably close to Saber's heart.
She rises from her bed slowly (blessedly, Wuxian isn't in the house) and carries on with her morning as usual. Normally, she would keep her visions of her Masters' memories to herself. They're exceedingly private things, and she tries not to make her Masters uncomfortable by raising their pasts to scrutiny. But Magilou did invite her to it, and Saber thinks that perhaps Magilou might benefit from speaking frankly about herself.
Either way, Saber was planning to pay Magilou a visit today. When the sun is high enough that Magilou is probably awake, Saber shimmies into their telepathic connection. ]
<< Magilou? Have you had breakfast yet? >>
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<< Ah! Caught me at my most vulnerable, like a cat pinning a mouse! Your dearest witch, with a grumbling stomach and an eye for an appetite! I think I might just starve without an intervention! >>
[ If she's overplaying her thespian side a bit, then she can hardly be blamed for that. Saber might know by now that her dramatics shift between fake and real, intertwining until even she can't tell where her feelings begin, but she has no other way to be quick on her feet. ]
<< So, in other words, no. You've got something? >>
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Saber also suffers (albeit more quietly) when her meals grow sparse. Whether Magilou's act is slightly exaggerated or fullblown melodrama, Saber identifies strongly with it. Three square meals a day with two snack breaks inbetween to tide her over: such has been her creed since discovering the wonders of the culinary arts a mere five and a half months ago. ]
<< I do. Freshly steamed fish with herbs and a boiled egg. I will be right there. >>
[ She doesn't wait to hear if Magilou wants the food or not, because she's getting it either way.
In slightly more time than usual (the food being especially delicate this time around), Saber touches down at Magilou's house with a small pot in one hand and a notebook in the other. ]
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Hm.
Regardless, she wastes no time in flinging the door open when she sees Saber approach from the window. It's not enough force to take it off its hinges, but it does end up hitting the wall. Whoops. ]
There you are! Fresh breakfast can be a delicacy! Forgive me for indulging too often.
[ She gestures for Saber to pass through the entrance and join her. Saber's been here enough that she probably doesn't need the invitation, but anyway...
She's brought something else, though, and when Magilou sees the notebook, she changes from carefree to curious. Like her other emotional quickchanges, it's subtle, but the way she catches the notebook with a raised eyebrow is unmistakable. ]
What else've you got there?
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1/2
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Endgame...
He wonders why he hadn’t done it sooner, on the off chance that she might forget this terrible memory he must now impart to her, as he stands upon her doorstep, once again risking Mordred’s ire by bypassing those wards. He’d yet to realize that Saber had been drifting here and there because of her roommate’s recent marriage, and so he comes upon her doorstep with all the grave tenacity and innocence of purpose of an invading army.
He still can’t help bowing at the sight of her—but there aren’t any witnesses around here anymore, right? ]
My liege.
whoa...
The surprise passes, and her expression smooths out to mild interest as she considers Tristan's bowed form. No one else is home at the moment (hence her prolonged stay today), so she abandons the need for secrecy as Tristan has. ]
Sir Tristan. Is something the matter?
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[ And soon, before she leaves for…where? Fuyuki? The Throne? To wherever her new master is going? The question hangs upon his lips as he lifts his gaze to regard her fully, swallowing down the bile in his throat as he presses on: ]
And these are rather…grave.
[ By which he means she might want to sit down for this one, because the awkwardness is totally going to continue! ]
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Saber adopts an appropriately solemn mien. She knows how much he usually has to fight to look at her in the face, so the fact that he does so now underscores the gravity of his words. She steps back, permitting Tristan to enter the house so that they might have more privacy. It's much the same as always inside, but if one looks hard enough, there are traces of change: a new cushion here, stray knickknacks littered about there, slight displacements that don't quite disrupt the order of the residence, but which permeate it nevertheless. ]
Come in and speak freely. I have no other pressing business at the moment.
[ And she'll wait expectantly for him to elaborate, as she might expect a soldier to make a report. ]
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At least she seems prepared for it, but she’s stone-faced and stoic as always, so even he cannot say for certain. Would he cause a break in that façade should he reveal the truth about Camelot? Would it be worth it? Jeanne believed it would be, but…no. There’s no room for hesitation now. King Arthur had asked that he aspire to be someone of worth. Jeanne had told him that maybe he shouldn’t jump to conclusions regarding Saber’s feelings.
And now here he stands, once again torn between two women as before his death. ]
Before I begin…may I ask where you might return to, my king?
[ The answer should be obvious to him, since she’d told him about her participation in the Fuyuki Grail War. But so many things have changed since then, and if she could have her chance for happiness in another world… ]
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If she will have me, I first intend to continue serving my Master in her homeworld. I believe she may yet have a use for me.
[ And Saber has a few questions of her own she still needs answers to. Seeing the different ways in which other people live their lives is always an illuminating experience. There is wisdom yet for her to seek before she can rest as a spirit. ]
When my time there is done, I will return to Camlann Hill and go where the World bids me.
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