proтoтype ѕaвer ♔ ĸιng arтнυr pendragon (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
holyswordwielder) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
towerofanimus2013-07-01 04:37 pm
holyswordwielder) wrote in towerofanimus2013-07-01 04:37 pm
002. ♔ There's bullet-holes where my compassion used to be
Characters: ProtoSaber; open
Setting: Graveyard and the 58th floor.
Format: Prose to start with, but I'll match you.
Summary: Saber's Master is gone from the Tower and the King of Knights has to consider the options before him regarding how he'll spend the rest of his time.
Warnings: Gorey floor. Also, Pandora members should approach at their own risk. If he figures out you're part of that organization, he'll be less than friendly.
♔ Floor 48: Graveyard
It's been two weeks since Ayaka disappeared from the Tower and Saber finds himself habitually visiting her tombstone at the end of each day. Most could presume this is rote for him because he is grieving and perhaps, in a sense, they are right. After all, there's no way to discover whether Ruana has sent her back to their dead world to wander or not— if she's killed her soul somehow instead. After the incident with the microchips, there's just no real way to know.
So, too jaded to put much stock in hoping for the life of Ayaka's spirit when Ruana is the one holding fate's reins, yet unwilling to accept the finality of her death, Saber comes here regularly to see if the tombstone remains. He's managed to avoid Lancer by sheer virtue of apathy; while the other Servant is away from the marker fighting monsters, he lets him fend for himself, standing at the grave site alone. Every time, Saber looks it over for any changes in the elaborate illusion that makes him think he's seeing real stone, touching real marble, but it never differs from day to day and always, Saber is left to his own devices to consider what he will do in the remaining months they possibly have left to live. This was his last direction, his sole purpose, and without it, he's trapped in a sort of self-imposed limbo.
Saber slams a fist against the top of the tomebstone, shutting his eyes. If he asked Ruana to return him to his dead world, would she even grant him that? The King of Britain, he can't just wait around for someone to give what remains of his life a meaning, but as a Servant, nor can he abandon his Master's memory entirely when there is still a slight chance he could find her.
♔ Floor 58
When Saber has finished checking Ayaka's tombstone, he usually visits the fifty-eighth floor for a lack of better things to do. The floor is high enough and provides enough targets of his own that he can practice various battle techniques, especially midair ones. It -- like fighting off the regular foray of monsters that roam the tower at night -- is a strangely calming manner of passing the time, though Saber supposes he wouldn't find it so if he didn't already know that the... targets hanging from the rafters of this high-ceiling floor aren't real corpses. No matter how cadavers in various states of decay Saber cuts down from the rafters, the next day, they're always replaced, the bottom floor cleared of hacked limbs, severed heads, dead maggots, and split torsos.
Occasionally, he wonders what they're really made of. Most of the time, he doesn't bother.
The knight runs up a wall and swings Excalibur covered in its sheath of wind out to his side, gripping the handle of the sword tightly with both hands. Once he reaches a satisfactory height, he unleashes a burst of prana to send himself rushing across the ceiling as he slices the blade of Excalibur through over a dozen bloated bodies. They hit the floor far down below with loud thuds that echo, the sounds bouncing off the false wood as if it was real. Well, steel provides fair enough acoustics to fool.
Setting: Graveyard and the 58th floor.
Format: Prose to start with, but I'll match you.
Summary: Saber's Master is gone from the Tower and the King of Knights has to consider the options before him regarding how he'll spend the rest of his time.
Warnings: Gorey floor. Also, Pandora members should approach at their own risk. If he figures out you're part of that organization, he'll be less than friendly.
♔ Floor 48: Graveyard
It's been two weeks since Ayaka disappeared from the Tower and Saber finds himself habitually visiting her tombstone at the end of each day. Most could presume this is rote for him because he is grieving and perhaps, in a sense, they are right. After all, there's no way to discover whether Ruana has sent her back to their dead world to wander or not— if she's killed her soul somehow instead. After the incident with the microchips, there's just no real way to know.
So, too jaded to put much stock in hoping for the life of Ayaka's spirit when Ruana is the one holding fate's reins, yet unwilling to accept the finality of her death, Saber comes here regularly to see if the tombstone remains. He's managed to avoid Lancer by sheer virtue of apathy; while the other Servant is away from the marker fighting monsters, he lets him fend for himself, standing at the grave site alone. Every time, Saber looks it over for any changes in the elaborate illusion that makes him think he's seeing real stone, touching real marble, but it never differs from day to day and always, Saber is left to his own devices to consider what he will do in the remaining months they possibly have left to live. This was his last direction, his sole purpose, and without it, he's trapped in a sort of self-imposed limbo.
Saber slams a fist against the top of the tomebstone, shutting his eyes. If he asked Ruana to return him to his dead world, would she even grant him that? The King of Britain, he can't just wait around for someone to give what remains of his life a meaning, but as a Servant, nor can he abandon his Master's memory entirely when there is still a slight chance he could find her.
♔ Floor 58
When Saber has finished checking Ayaka's tombstone, he usually visits the fifty-eighth floor for a lack of better things to do. The floor is high enough and provides enough targets of his own that he can practice various battle techniques, especially midair ones. It -- like fighting off the regular foray of monsters that roam the tower at night -- is a strangely calming manner of passing the time, though Saber supposes he wouldn't find it so if he didn't already know that the... targets hanging from the rafters of this high-ceiling floor aren't real corpses. No matter how cadavers in various states of decay Saber cuts down from the rafters, the next day, they're always replaced, the bottom floor cleared of hacked limbs, severed heads, dead maggots, and split torsos.
Occasionally, he wonders what they're really made of. Most of the time, he doesn't bother.
The knight runs up a wall and swings Excalibur covered in its sheath of wind out to his side, gripping the handle of the sword tightly with both hands. Once he reaches a satisfactory height, he unleashes a burst of prana to send himself rushing across the ceiling as he slices the blade of Excalibur through over a dozen bloated bodies. They hit the floor far down below with loud thuds that echo, the sounds bouncing off the false wood as if it was real. Well, steel provides fair enough acoustics to fool.
no subject
Yes, he took me to the infirmary afterward.
[He's been told not to make excuses, but he does want to explain. He doesn't want to make Lancelot look like he'd failed in his task as a Servant. It had been a difficult battle, and the monster had apparently been able to alter time, as well as regenerating.]
It isn't his fault that it happened. I wouldn't get out of the way. I was worried about Shinji--my nephew, and I tried to fight, too.
[Kariya basically ignores the fact that that Shinji isn't his nephew by this point, and it's possible he believes that Shinji is his nephew, half of the time. But that's not really the issue right now.]
no subject
I didn't say it was.
[ On second thought, he holds out the flowers for the Master to take back. ]
You don't know who I am, do you? He has not told you.
[ He nods understandingly. ]
My true name is Arthur Pendragon.
no subject
[He takes back the flowers when they're offered to him. He shakes his head when Saber asks if he knows who he is, and then his eyes widen when Saber provides that information.]
But I thought--King Arthur is a--
[A woman, he wants to say, but then he realizes that's foolish, when they all come from different worlds, different realities. There are probably worlds where he's a woman, somewhere.]
I see. So you're-- [How to sum up the relationship between Arthur and Lancelot? It's not exactly an uncomplicated one.] Friends.
no subject
It's complicated, yes, but he has always been my dearest friend. I trust that he always has your best interests in mind and at heart.
[ His trust in the other knight is more nuanced than he lets on, but he does accept that the circumstances under which Lancelot betrayed him were very different from that of Kariya's. ]
no subject
Yes, I know, it's complicated. [Not that Kariya wants to go into what must be an awkward topic.]
He does. He's always very kind to me. He looks after me. It was different, when he was Berserker, but since we came here, we've gotten along much better. I didn't want to summon him that way, so I'm glad I got to know him, as he really is.
[He still feels a bit strange about some aspects of his relationship with Lancelot, but it's fine...]