towerofanimus | ITP: Meandering

Entry tags:

ITP: Meandering

Characters: Arturia Pendragon [AU5] and anyone
Setting: Dorms, Floor One, Floor Twenty-~~three~~four, 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 Apparently the collar placed on her here superseded it.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"?

Threaded | Flat

Um...

[There's a tentative voice that spoke up the moment the girl entered the floor, fortunately it's empty right now, but in any case, the kid's going to pipe up right after that.]

You do know you'll um. Die if you go back and forth too much, right?

There's no right answer for that.

[A voice piped from one of the bean bags, although it sounded quite ragged and tired, but hey, someone answered, right?]

"Saber, what has gotten into you?"

Rin doesn't recognize the more vibrant color of her hair or how she wears it differently. No, she only recognizes the face that is shared by two others in this place in between ravenous bites of food. After being close to one of the Sabers here, she felt as though she could address her that way.

Even if it is was in public in the cafeteria. "Well? You're acting as though you haven't eaten in days."

Edited (oops I failed to read prose up there) 2013-01-07 04:15 (UTC)

... Saber?

[After spending some time in the tower, Irisviel had gotten used to a few things. One was seeing just how much food Saber could put away. Another thing was Saber's new appearance; pale hair, yellow eyes, the mark of corruption on her face.

So... seeing her like this, looking remarkably like how she looked the last time Irisviel saw her in their world... it was confusing, actually. Did something happen...?]

Saber walked into the lounge, looking for someone, and actually walked right past the woman that looked like her, thinking she was the Roman at first. But then she stopped, head coming up.

No, that wasn't the Roman Saber. That was...

Slowly, Saber turned to set her pale eyes on the likeness of what she used to see in the mirror most of her existence. Her nostrils flared once, but she said nothing. Why was this damn Tower insisting on reminding her of that which she had once been?

[ Little does this Arturia know, but there's someone else in this tower who shared her fate--

--and he'll meet her, abruptly, on the twenty-fourth floor, coming down instead of going up. ]

...Saber.

[ Archer regards her inscrutably. ]

I can't say I think that outfit suits you.

[... Okay, this is getting weird. It had been strange enough seeing that Black Saber and how similar she looked to her own Red Saber. But now there's a strange woman here, looking even more similar to her Saber than the other did? One of the administrators must be having fun here.

It takes her a moment, but Hakuno eventually realizes she's very obviously staring at the woman. Looking a bit flustered, she tries to make up for this by actually approaching.]

There are some things you can do here. There are libraries and a media room. Monsters to fight, people you can spend time with...

[Thanks to the many nice people who he had run into during his first day in the tower, Lancer knows well the dangers of the non-existent 23 floor. It still shocks him , though, when he sees the ghostly shape that so closely mirrors the Saber he knows.

Her eyes even seem to be the proper color. Green, not the gold that he has been told is the eye color of the Saber who lives here.

Her clothes are unfamiliar, though, and for a moment that gives him pause. Perhaps, it's not her after all?

As the woman turns to make another run down the floors, he shakes his head leaving his pondering for later. If he lets her go again, she might fade completely and Saber or not, he can't let that happen to someone.

A few quick steps and he's caught a hold of her arm and is gently pulling her away from the doorway downstairs.]

Stop. If you continue to look for what is not there, you will lose yourself completely...Arturia.

[He's quietly sitting in the lounge, not reading or doing anything in particular, just sitting with his eyes closed, when suddenly he hears a voice. He gives a start, because it's a familiar voice.

Saber.

She's already tried to kill him, or very nearly, twice. His eyes snap open, but the person he sees before him doesn't look like the person he expects. Her eyes and clothes are markedly different. What does it mean? He isn't sure how to react. With his usual worm-inspired lack of quick thinking, he blurts an apology. He hadn't meant to overhear, or, in fact, to be anywhere near Saber.]

I'm sorry.

[Then, because she'd sounded– sad, he adds, cautiously:]

Are you all right?

Kazumi peered out of the kitchen. She'd never seen Saber wear that outfit before, but then, it wasn't unlike the tower to suddenly give people strange gifts like that. However, something else seemed off about her...

Regardless, the girl carried out the towering pile of food she'd been cooking towards the hungry knight, sure that amount her liege had before her wouldn't last long.

"Hmm, is something wrong?" she asked as she reached the table, setting down the food across from her. Even as she asked, Kazumi surely had a puzzled look on her face too. It wasn't just the clothes, there was something definitely odd here. Besides Saber's apparent lack of appetite. "Is the standard food no good today, Saber?"

[ Lately, Ayaka's been pretty sleepy. But she was tird of rolling over and going back to bed so she decided to finally get up and start socializing again!

But first, food. After changing, Ayaka made her way downstairs with a slight yawn escaping her mouth. She almost walked past Arturia until a familiar presence made her stop right in her tracks. She turned around and stared for a quick moment. Wasn't this the Saber she met when she first got here? The one who claimed to be King Arthur?

She looked... Different. ]

Ah, Saber...?

Well now, that was a familiar sight. Saber was always someone she was willing to see. But this Saber... this was strange. So feminine. So... pure. This wasn't right. This wasn't the Saber she knew, or even the one she roomed with. Catarina walked up next to her and spoke into her ear, her voice velvety dark with her demonic promises.

"White does not suit you, dear king."

Shotaro could not help but notice her. Strange, she seemed different from the other two that he saw walking the halls, though avoided; the one in black seemed to make him want to flee by simple gaze alone. Going into the cafeteria, he approached her, eyeing the food. Too....tempting..

But he notices her face and the way she was forcing herself to eat it all. It felt familiar to him.

"Excuse me, miss? Is everything alright?" he asked politely, if a bit nervous.

Well, for once in all the time Waver has been in the tower, Saber actually...looks somewhat approachable? He had decided there was no point in trying to make nice with her, but she looks different now - had something else happened to offset whatever had happened to her? His curiosity gets the better of him, and so, despite his better judgement, Waver approaches the king in the beanbag chair.

"Saber? Did you manage to find Merlin?"

After all, she had been so distressed over looking for the wizard when he last spoke to her. That seems the most likely occurance to have changed her.

Threaded | Flat

Floor 24, right by the stairs.

Floor 38

no subject

Floor 1

Floor 38

floor 24;

[Floor 38]