ITP: Days of Our Lives

[no_longer_a_king]

Characters: Saber Lily Saber of White and Avenger Shirou
Setting: Cafeteria
Format: Whichever Sura wants
Summary: Arturia runs into a not-quite old flame.
Warnings: Possibly graphic descriptions of character death? Also more soap opera-level shenanigans.

Arturia tended to keep to herself most days. True, she would check in with those she had come to know every now and then, but most days she simply wandered the Tower, trying to build up the map she and Diarmuid were slowly but surely putting together. An idea was forming in her mind after talking with a few others. If their goal was to reach the lower levels, then they needed to map it out in order to figure out what the best way to strike was. This was enemy territory they would be going into and they needed to be ready.

She entered the cafeteria, trying to remember who had gone down with her and breezed past the line into the kitchens to get more of these "dinorsaur chicken nuggets" she found bland, but were amusing to look at while she ate and play with when no one was there to see. It was here that her thoughts ground to a halt.

There, by the stove, was a shock of red hair on a boy she had a vague idea might show up, but she had never expected to see in the flesh again. A boy who, in one moment, she remembered meeting, serving, fighting alongside, kissing, and so much more. So much more that ended in his death at her hands for a wish that ultimately meant nothing. Feelings she had been attempting to keep at bay for the sake of moving on raged like dragonfire within her heart and she had to take a moment to quell it before finally speaking.

"Shirou?"

Comments

[no_longer_a_king]

"It's all right," she says quietly, her own eating having slowed down.

She isn't poking her food like Shirou has, but she knows him well enough to understand the shock he must be going through. It's the same shock she had gone through when she arrived here, elated momentarily by her newfound freedom which had been followed shortly by the shock of how she had utterly failed in her duties. Put on top of that how desperately Shirou had wished to save people and she knows he must be beating himself up over this.

In what she hopes is a comforting gesture, she reaches out to him, forces down the urge to pull away from him when her fingers brush his shoulder, and sets her hand upon his shoulder. It feels just as warm and strong as she remembers and she has to fight down both a blush and the urge to get as far away as possible.

There is no Grail here, no temptation, not even a hope for her own kingdom to be saved somehow. Just the two of them and a meal. In this moment she is no danger to him.

"You must not blame yourself for this," she says in a firm tone that she only used when she expected to be listened to, "From what I understand, no one could have known this is happening until it had already happened."

[heroicprinciple]

The hand on his shoulder, sudden and reassuring, doesn't shake him out of the bout of shock that grips his chest tight, grinding his brain to a halt. Not even the notion of a girl touching him which would normally cause the teenager to overreact works. But the firmness of the tone she uses on him does. He averts his eyes momentarily before peeling his hand from his face, and turning to look at her. The cant of his head suggests attentiveness, the indecisiveness of a kid being told to snap to when he doesn't want to.

His shoulders don't slump.

"I don't think I can do that," he confessed. Shirou had experience with survivor's guilt and it doesn't go away. City blocks of people. A world of people. Numbers and methods and survivors aside, it was only the magnitude of this where it differed. He thinks it's unfair. He doesn't know why or how it's unfair, but it's unfair that this is how their situation is. But complaints about the unfairness of it all will not solve anything.

Saber was right about how he couldn't have stopped it. But he had been in no position to stop the fire either.

The best he could hope for was preventing it from repeating itself.

(Archer, his face closed and blank, sneering. Heroes clean up after disasters, nothing else. That's not salvation. That's merely burning shut the wounds that have already appeared. An incorrect ideal.

Mentally, he told him to fuck off.)

So Shirou smiles. "It's stupid of me, but I can't accept that reason for an excuse for not doing anything. I'm not going to whine about it or hate myself for it, however. So there's no need to worry."