Counter Guardian Arturia @ Tower of Animus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
no_longer_a_king) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
towerofanimus2013-01-06 06:41 pm
no_longer_a_king) wrote in towerofanimus2013-01-06 06:41 pm
ITP: Meandering
Characters: Arturia Pendragon [AU5] and anyone
Setting: Dorms, Floor One, Floor Twenty-threefour, and Floor Thirty-eight.
Format: Prose
Summary: Arturia wakes up in the tower after what must be countless centuries of forced combat.... and has no idea what to do with herself!
Warnings: DEATH! WOOHOO! In the first post, too! \o/
[Room 03-17]
It was with a jolt and a gasp that she finally sat up, hand going to her neck only to find the collar there but all the same she could move. She could move. She could breathe.
"W-what?"
She could speak.
What was this place? Yet another battlefield in which she'd be made to slaughter guilty and innocent alike endlessly, an angel of death garbed in blood-stained white for all to see? It made no sense to her. None whatsoever. She glanced around the room for any sign of what she was meant to do but only found other beds like the one she laid on and a trunk much like the one at the foot of her bed. Her eyes finally fell on the notes and she snatched them up, reading them thoroughly, her heart squeezing with every moment.
The world was.... gone? She was free? Free from her punishment?
Arturia had no idea how to feel about this. On the one hand even she could be grateful of the reprieve, but on the other hand it had been at the cost of who knows how many lives? And what if the world itself was still in tact? Would she go right back to fighting endlessly as soon as she returned? Questions. So many questions she didn't understand, but she balled up her notes and placed them in the trashcan. With barely a thought she summoned what was now her normal attire, sans the collar. Apparently the collar placed on her here superseded it. No matter. It wasn't like she was really attached to anything beyond her sword at this point.
And so Arturia headed out of her dorm, wanting to know just where she'd wound up and where to go from here.
[Floor One]
If there was one indulgence she would allow herself, it was food. Naturally when she'd read she'd have to eat some oatmeal before she could eat anything else she'd been fine with it.
There wasn't much of a spread in the cafeteria, simply eggs for breakfast, and once she was done with her oatmeal she tore into them like a hyena. It wasn't very kingly or knightly or even as lady-like as her appearance would suggest, but it was something. They were not the best made nor would it have been memorable otherwise--but it was food! Real food! And a delicious smell beyond the smell of blood and steal she never knew she'd grow tired of.
Part of her mind went back to those meals in Fuyuki, how warm the house had been, how Shirou had insisted she eat at the table with everyone else despite her and Rin's protests.
How delicious the meals had been, cooked with a care and pride not common in her time. Arturia found her appetite gone, the food tasting like ash, but not wanting to waste it, she forced herself to finish, though she no longer looks happy about it.
[Floor Twenty-Two to Floor Twenty-Four]
Wait, had she lost count of the floors? Arturia thought back for a moment. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, she could have sworn she just went past the twenty-third floor to explore, so why could she not remember it. She turned on the stairs to check again. She needed to be thorough in creating a mental map of this place and the dangers it could present.
Except she bypassed it again! What was wrong with her? Had she been controlled for so long her senses were completely dull?! With a frustrated sigh she turned again to go up the stairs--
--and again she missed the floor entirely! And again! Again again again she kept missing it. This tower would not make a fool of her! She turned yet again, this time counting the number of stairs to make sure she didn't miss the floor, a determined look on her face, and unaware of how her body was slowly becoming vaguely transparent time she passed the twenty-third floor.
[Floor Thirty-Eight]
Her body didn't ache after climbing so many stairs like a normal person would, but Arturia knew there was only so much time in the day. The elevator would be a few flights up and then she could see about returning to her dorm to become further acquainted with her roommates. But for now this room seemed as good enough place as any to rest and gather her thoughts.
The elation of being able to move freely, to speak freely, to make her own choices was starting to lose its novelty. Arturia sank into a bean bag chair, for once in her now-long life not caring how dignified she looked in doing so. If the world had, indeed, ended and she had, somehow, been saved, it left one question on her mind that she couldn't hold back any longer. For so long everything had been clear before her, her path marked with a vivid certainty she could not take her eyes from.
Only now it was gone. Gone not just in the world itself being gone, but her Kingdom, her friends, every last person had been lost to her by coming here; destroyed by her own hand. For so long she had believed there was no escaping her fate, her punishment, and now here she was, completely and utterly alone and lost.
"What do I do now?" she asked aloud both for the novelty and because some part of her mind was beginning to settle into a sort of malaise of "who cares"?
Setting: Dorms, Floor One, Floor Twenty-
Format: Prose
Summary: Arturia wakes up in the tower after what must be countless centuries of forced combat.... and has no idea what to do with herself!
Warnings: DEATH! WOOHOO! In the first post, too! \o/
[Room 03-17]
It was with a jolt and a gasp that she finally sat up, hand going to her neck only to find the collar there but all the same she could move. She could move. She could breathe.
"W-what?"
She could speak.
What was this place? Yet another battlefield in which she'd be made to slaughter guilty and innocent alike endlessly, an angel of death garbed in blood-stained white for all to see? It made no sense to her. None whatsoever. She glanced around the room for any sign of what she was meant to do but only found other beds like the one she laid on and a trunk much like the one at the foot of her bed. Her eyes finally fell on the notes and she snatched them up, reading them thoroughly, her heart squeezing with every moment.
The world was.... gone? She was free? Free from her punishment?
Arturia had no idea how to feel about this. On the one hand even she could be grateful of the reprieve, but on the other hand it had been at the cost of who knows how many lives? And what if the world itself was still in tact? Would she go right back to fighting endlessly as soon as she returned? Questions. So many questions she didn't understand, but she balled up her notes and placed them in the trashcan. With barely a thought she summoned what was now her normal attire, sans the collar. Apparently the collar placed on her here superseded it. No matter. It wasn't like she was really attached to anything beyond her sword at this point.
And so Arturia headed out of her dorm, wanting to know just where she'd wound up and where to go from here.
[Floor One]
If there was one indulgence she would allow herself, it was food. Naturally when she'd read she'd have to eat some oatmeal before she could eat anything else she'd been fine with it.
There wasn't much of a spread in the cafeteria, simply eggs for breakfast, and once she was done with her oatmeal she tore into them like a hyena. It wasn't very kingly or knightly or even as lady-like as her appearance would suggest, but it was something. They were not the best made nor would it have been memorable otherwise--but it was food! Real food! And a delicious smell beyond the smell of blood and steal she never knew she'd grow tired of.
Part of her mind went back to those meals in Fuyuki, how warm the house had been, how Shirou had insisted she eat at the table with everyone else despite her and Rin's protests.
How delicious the meals had been, cooked with a care and pride not common in her time. Arturia found her appetite gone, the food tasting like ash, but not wanting to waste it, she forced herself to finish, though she no longer looks happy about it.
[Floor Twenty-Two to Floor Twenty-Four]
Wait, had she lost count of the floors? Arturia thought back for a moment. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, she could have sworn she just went past the twenty-third floor to explore, so why could she not remember it. She turned on the stairs to check again. She needed to be thorough in creating a mental map of this place and the dangers it could present.
Except she bypassed it again! What was wrong with her? Had she been controlled for so long her senses were completely dull?! With a frustrated sigh she turned again to go up the stairs--
--and again she missed the floor entirely! And again! Again again again she kept missing it. This tower would not make a fool of her! She turned yet again, this time counting the number of stairs to make sure she didn't miss the floor, a determined look on her face, and unaware of how her body was slowly becoming vaguely transparent time she passed the twenty-third floor.
[Floor Thirty-Eight]
Her body didn't ache after climbing so many stairs like a normal person would, but Arturia knew there was only so much time in the day. The elevator would be a few flights up and then she could see about returning to her dorm to become further acquainted with her roommates. But for now this room seemed as good enough place as any to rest and gather her thoughts.
The elation of being able to move freely, to speak freely, to make her own choices was starting to lose its novelty. Arturia sank into a bean bag chair, for once in her now-long life not caring how dignified she looked in doing so. If the world had, indeed, ended and she had, somehow, been saved, it left one question on her mind that she couldn't hold back any longer. For so long everything had been clear before her, her path marked with a vivid certainty she could not take her eyes from.
Only now it was gone. Gone not just in the world itself being gone, but her Kingdom, her friends, every last person had been lost to her by coming here; destroyed by her own hand. For so long she had believed there was no escaping her fate, her punishment, and now here she was, completely and utterly alone and lost.
"What do I do now?" she asked aloud both for the novelty and because some part of her mind was beginning to settle into a sort of malaise of "who cares"?
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It was then she decided, at the very least, regardless of how little her other self would think of her, she would tell her what had happened so as to avoid her fate. Ridiculous dresses were the least of her worries: ensuring Camelot's safety would always come first.
"What is that?" she asked, now sitting atop her trunk when her other self returned, glancing at the bundle. What could she possibly wish to show her?
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Aside from meal times, that was.
"Something else for you to wear. Keep them if you wish." Saber sat down on the bed again. She gave a light snort. "So much for keeping my identity secret here."
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Yes, even if corrupted, she knew this other self was still her deep down in there if she was willing to protect some semblance of pride.
"Thank you," she said and, not being ashamed of her body at all, dismissed that ridiculous dress, stood, and began to remove the body suit this place had put her in. At least she could start feeling like herself again in some form.
The entire time she changed she continued talking:
"At least you have an identity to protect. I've been at a loss of what to even call myself. I was not brought here as a Servant so 'Saber' does not fit and I have no right to 'Pendragon' any longer. It's maddening."
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"Then you are simply Arturia." She then smirked and looked back over at Arturia once she knew the woman was decent enough. "Or Wart."
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"But there is another matter I should tell you of, if you haven't figured it out for yourself. It isn't right to keep it from you if you have not." If this other self truly intended to save Camelot as well.
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"Though I may call you Wart." She then shrugged. "What is there to tell? That worthless former master of mine and you managed to win the Holy Grail. You were granted your wish to redo the Selection of the Sword and someone better suited to be King drew Caliburn from the stone. You, in turn, had to hold up your end of the deal with the World and served as its sword."
She raised and eyebrow. "Am I correct?"
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She averted her eyes from her other self. This would never be something she could admit to anyone while looking them in the face, no matter what. And if this other self was calling Shirou 'worthless' it was safe to say her heart had not softened towards him as her had, and she had not betrayed him when tempted with the Grail as she herself had.
"In part. What I did not know and you surely do, is the Grail is corrupted. Tell me, what do you think would happen to Camelot if a wish was made upon something brimming with said corruption, waiting to be unleashed on the world?"
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Snorting a little, Saber laid back on the bed, and propped one leg up on a bent knee, hands laced behind her neck. "It would change as the wish dictated. That is the power of wishing for the impossible - it changes things that should not be possible to change like the past and the legends humanity knows and pathetically aspires toward."
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She kept herself from rolling her eyes at her double as she worked the braid and ribbon into her bun. It provided enough distraction that it made talking about it easier. If this double proved to not care about Camelot at all then....
Well, she had no idea what she'd do about it.
"Then think for a moment about how a wish to redo the Drawing of the Sword would turn out? I asked for someone better in my place. How do you think the Grail would react to that corrupted as it is?"
Is her alternate self playing dumb or would she be forced to spell it out?
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"How it turned out purely depends on the exact wording of the wish and the desire felt in the heart at the time of the wish. Magic always comes with a price. I know there were times when Merlin's teachings went in one ear and out the other as magecraft was not the way of a king, but it still lingered in the mind."
She didn't look up when she asked the question her other self was leading Saber toward but probably didn't want to actually be asked. "You destroyed it, did you not?"
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Ribbon firmly in place her hands settled on her lap and she only looked there. A soft "yes" leaving her in a small voice that didn't sound like her own. Of course this other self would know how to cut to the heart of the matter. They were two sides of the same coin in a sense.
Still, what she said nagged at her. She was certain she wished for the Choosing of the King to be redone. Yes, her heart had been in turmoil, but was it possible that if she hadn't killed Shirou, would Camelot still have existed in some form?
That just made her feel even more sick to her stomach. Was her betrayal of Shirou the very thing that ultimately sealed Camelot's fate? Was her confusion over her feelings for him what had damned her kingdom?
If so, she could never let that happen again. Ever. Not if it would only end in disaster like it had. Arturia had no right to it.
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"You need to understand that while we are the same, we are also very different. I once walked the path you did, suffering betrayal after betrayal, failure after failure. And then when I had lost again, failed again, I was given a choice," she explained. "And instead of fading away to await the next time I was summoned, the next turn of the cycle, I made the decision to take another path and still fight."
She finally understood what being a hero had been. Just like she still understood what it was to be a king. "Wart, I ask you: did you forget the words Merlin spoke to you before you approached the Stone, about what a king was?"
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"No, I have not."
But she had forgotten, she realized. Not the words themselves, or drawing Caliburn, but she'd allowed herself to go against them. Why else would she have welcomed Shirou's embrace if she hadn't? Why else would she have found herself longing for the warmth he offered to her? Before then, being King had been enough and she'd accepted the loneliness as part of the duty she took up. She was no longer human.
More and more it hit her just how much she had failed at being King. Not even in death could she remain as one.
It also begged the question of just how many Grail Wars this other self had been through. Her other self--'Saber,' she decided, was right. They were two different people. Expecting them to be exactly alike would have been like expecting her and Mordred to be the same and Arturia certainly never had Mordred's mouth.
"That's why you embraced the corruption, then?"
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"A king is one who kills everyone to save everyone. A king is no longer human. A king cannot rule with human emotion," Saber recited quietly. "And the duty of a hero is to be hated. Ostracized. Just as a King. And when I all the corruption was before me - All the World's Evil - I willingly took it in and embraced it. Endured it and still do."
She looked to her hands, flexing her fingers. "It was my obligation to do so. I had lived such a foolish dream and finally, finally I could wake and face the reality I had ignored for so long." Saber raised her eyes to meet those of her other self.
"So many lost their lives because of me, that I owe a blood debt that I will never be able to repay. And that is true despair. So this is my penance."
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Arturia knew better than anyone else just how steep that debt went, how many bodies were piled in her wake. An entire nation's worth--several nations' worth of blood on her hands and she had been willing to pay the price. When her darker self put it that way, she could understand the need for penance, could understand why, if given the choice, she'd ask for corruption as opposed to anything else.
That had been what she'd seen her endless fighting as, why she desperately wish someone else besides her had been saved. Tentatively she reached out, hand hovering over her other self's before drawing back. Not due to the corruption, but because she knew this person would not appreciate being prodded.
"What's it like?" she asked, letting her curiosity get to her. If she called this penance, she would not argue it. Arturia had made others suffer for the sake of her stupid stupid dream. Her darker self had ensured only she would suffer.
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"There is a dark rage deep inside. It surrounds my heart and burrows further into it, little by little, as each day passes. Some times I feel it trying to take my mind over, but I know if that happens I will become nothing more than a savage monster that kills anything of the light." She lowers her head back down and looks at her skirt's hem again.
"...it is hard to tell what is right and what is wrong. I used to be able to know immediately what was the right course of action. Now, I am not so sure. I cannot maintain the stoicism as I once could... nor do I want to. Avalon rejects me. And..."
She closed her eyes as her words trailed off, but not before that utter loneliness Arturia should be familiar with was seen in the knight's pale eyes.
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Avalon rejected her? Avalon was here? Some part of her wondered if that meant Shirou was here as well, but no. No. As much as she hated herself for it she knew he would be the last person she would want to see--any version of him from any universe. Arturia had no idea how she would handle it.
She summoned Caliburn once more and held it out. She studied it for a moment. True, it was a king's sword, but it was the sign of one chosen to be king and this other self looked just as uncertain as she herself did about.... well.... everything.
"Here. You have as much right to it as I do," she said, holding it out and, this time, praying to any deity that would listen to those as damned as they that her mirror image would not be rejected by it.
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Saber's head snapped up and her eyes flared with... was it fear? It was hard to tell, but the emotion in that one word couldn't be ignore. Nor the way Saber quickly removed herself off the bed and away from that sword.
The knight stood facing the door. She actually thought about walking out of it for a moment, but stood still. Then she summoned Excalibur and drove the point of it into the floor. The blade was so black it seemed to suck in the light and the red markings glowed and even appeared to pulse if it was watched long enough. Saber crossed her arms, hands gripping her own arms tight enough that her knuckles went white.
"Do you want Caliburn to become like Excalibur? Or shatter upon my touch?"
She still didn't know if she could hold the king's sword... and she was afraid to try.
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"I do not wish it to become corrupted nor to shatter. However, I honestly believe it will accept you, at the very least allow you to hold it since I'm giving it to you of my own free will."
She held it out to her, more insistent now.
"If you are indeed Arturia Pendragon, King of Knights, then what are you afraid of?" Arturia felt a twinge of guilt for it, but if Saber was having just as much trouble controlling her emotions as she, then she wouldn't back down from a challenge like this.
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"Let me tell you what I am afraid of," she snapped. "I am afraid of what I will do if it does accept me. I want to hold it again, yes. I want my sword in hand. I want my birthright in hand again. It has been too long since I have held Caliburn."
Her hand lowered enough that Excalibur's blade touched the floor again. "But I also want to destroy it. I want to snap that gilded blade that names me King of Britain. And I do not know what I will do if it is in my hands again."
Saber reached out for it and stopped herself again, just like she had before. She then lowered her had, balled into a fist, down to her side, as she stared at Caliburn with a longing. "Tell me... Have you ever looked at someon-- something so pure, so perfect, that you knew your touch would just sully it? That while it did not seem to care because you were still you, that you knew you were no longer worthy to hold that pure thing again..."
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Someone so pure and perfect and she knew her touch would sully it? Shirou was not pure, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he was so driven, so determined, and so sure of what was right that it hurt every time she'd had to drive reality into him. To think someone could possibly have cared about her in the way he believed he did....
And she hadn't even stopped to consider an alternative when she'd been offered the Grail
"Yes. I do," she said quietly, letting her hand drop to her side and dismissing Caliburn, "I know very well what that's like."
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Saber walked back over to sit on the edge of the bed. "Can we agree on that?"
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Shirou had held Avalon and Arturia witnessed Shirou's memories in his sleep. It had been easy to put the pieces together in her mind of one of the many reasons why Kiritsugu had wanted Irisviel to act as her master. Homunculus or not, Irisviel had been his beloved wife and he had wanted desperately for her to remain herself as long as possible. It only made sense to give the woman Avalon so she might retain her identity for longer if it was possible.
"Do you have any other business you wish to discuss with me?"
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"Yes, one thing. And this is only because I feel the need to voice something I know I should not need to," Saber replied. "You will treat her well. You will give your life to protect her if you must. If she requests it, you will be her knight again." Saber locked the emotion from her eyes then. "Despite your poor decision, you are still untainted. She should be with you - not me."
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Oh.
So Irisviel really was in the Tower then. Arturia made a mental note to seek the woman out and see how she was. Saber had been right when it came to the fact her order would not need voicing. If Irisviel was here, as afraid as she was of temptation, Arturia would never be anything but her loyal knight.
And yet....
"I apologize, but you know Irisviel as well as I do, if not moreso. She will not take kindly to you insisting she choose one of us. Tainted or not, she will still call us both her knights once she's made aware of my presence and I...."
Here, her voice faltered.
"I propose instead we keep the other in check when it comes to her. I do not have the strength I used to and it has been a long time since I have been able to battle under my own will. I do not yet trust my skills to keep her safe--" Or what she would do if she were tempted as she had been before--"and you clearly do not trust your emotions around her. Therefore, we will work to cover one another's weaknesses."
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