towerofanimus | just this once, everybody lives!

Arturia, for once, is weary. Weary and staggering, but smiling and taking a lot of pride in her companions. Once she made sure everyone has made it back safely, she'll allow herself to collapse in a corner of the hidden floor. It's not dignified, no, but she finds it comfortable to sit with her back to the wall and her legs stretched out before her, simply watching everyone celebrate.

The countdown is still winding down, but for the first time it feels to her like they might be able to survive beyond it. If they can make it past the countdown, then perhaps they really will manage to make things right in one way or another.

He recognises her face as she enters the floor; he's met her before in passing, and besides that, he can feel the connection to her that the glamour has given him.

Though he's drawn to that connection, he gives her some space while he checks on others that have come back from the infiltration. It's a little while before England finds it appropriate to address her, approaching her with quiet footsteps. He kneels on one knee before the spot where she sits and tries to conquer an awkward fidget in his fingers as he speaks. It's obvious from the state of her that she, too, has just returned from the mission.

"...is there anything I can do for you?" he ventures in his politest tone, hoping he doesn't sound too presumptuous.

She looks up at Arthur as he gets closer, her back going stiff without even thinking about it. Arturia knows who and what he is now thanks to that little boy blurting it out. How it works she does not know as she had been whisked back to her dead world before she had a chance to seek him out. When she'd returned she'd been so focused on fixing things here she hadn't thought about it.

But now he is in front of her, talking to her properly and Arturia finds she has no idea how to react. All she knows about Arthur is that Zelda is fond of him, he knows the Fae, he looks after that little blonde boy who is able to toss around things many times his size, and he is somehow the nation of England. Somehow this man is the embodiment of the country she failed.

Would he even be alive in her world if some version of him existed there?

"A blanket, please?" she finds herself asking even though she isn't very cold. Any eloquence she possibly had is gone thanks to exhaustion and his presence unintentionally blindsiding her.

Oblivious to her internal struggles, England nods, affirming, "Of course. It'll have to be from one of the dormitories; do you mind?"

He wouldn't bother asking most people, since they should be grateful he was helping them at all, but she is his citizen, and one who has just come back from completing a very noble task. She is special, and most definitely worth his best manners, even if she may not know exactly who he is.

Besides, it's not like it's a very long trip from here to the dormitories. It won't take more than a few minutes to run and get the blanket off of his bed to bring back to her.

"No, I don't mind," she says if only because it will give her a few minutes to think.

Does she let this go? What does she say to him? What exactly is he? A spirit like she technically is? Is he like the World she pledged herself to? But no. If he were at all like that, he would not care one bit for that boy she often sees him with nor for Zelda if how he insisted on going downstairs during the confrontation with Jason is any sign. All he would care about would be the preservation of humanity, that was all.

When he returns with the blanket, she takes it gratefully and decides to find out for the sake of her own piece of mind.

"Mr. Kirkland?" she begins, "Do you mind if I ask you something that I heard a short while ago?"

A quick nod and he's off, taking the teleporter back to the hundred-first floor and hurrying up to the dorms to divest his bed of its glamoured covers. He returns with the blanket and sheets folded up in a bit of a harried fashion; the sheets are set aside on a table and the blanket is unfolded and presented to Arturia down on one knee.

Her question takes him by surprise, evident in the arch of his eyebrows. He's immediately wary, despite his instinct to protect her. It must be some kind of personal question, if she's reluctant to ask it.

Still, if she's requesting permission in the first place, she'll understand if it turns out that he'd rather not answer it after all, he thinks. So, he eventually replies, "I don't mind. What is it you were wondering about?" and hopes that whatever she heard wasn't out of the mouth of anyone of a French persuasion.

No, not a French persuasion.

A Colonial one.

Arturia kept her voice low so others would not eavesdrop without being obvious about it.

"That boy I often see you with? Before I was sent back to my world in March, he called you 'England'. Is that a nickname or is there more to it?"

'That boy'. She must mean America, especially given that America is one of the few people in the Tower who consistently refers to him as 'England'.

So she has her suspicions about his identity, then.

There's no point in lying, and besides, England generally finds it in poor taste to lie to his people. So, after a contemplative shift of his shoulders, he answers, the volume of his statement no higher than Arturia's. "It's not a nickname, though it was once shorthand for 'the Kingdom of England'."

He opts to move into a more comfortable sitting position, folding his legs underneath himself. Talking about the nation thing usually means he's in for a lengthy explanation. "I'm not exactly human. Though it sounds like you might have figured that much already."

"That's like saying water is wet in this Tower," Arturia said, spreading the blanket out over her legs more for something to do with her hands than anything else. "Even moreso those who wear collars such as ours."

Violet. Those who wore violet tended to be spirits of some kind, she'd noted, or had some kind of spiritual persuasion to them. So with a mere glance she knew Arthur was more than he seemed to be.

"When I knew that Kingdom, it was called Albion." If he was going to be honest with her, then she had no reason to try to evade anything about herself even if she was mentally bracing herself for it. Arturia finished arranging the blanket and leaned back against the wall, well and truly settled for a long explanation, but keeping her eyes on the others in case it looked like someone might overhear them.

England searched her face for any tell of insincerity about her claim, but he didn't find any. If what she said was true, then he had to wonder why he didn't have any recollection of her from his childhood. While he couldn't possibly know every citizen of his personally, he knew more when he and his population were smaller.

"...I was very young when I was called Albion," he confirmed after a moment of contemplation. "You've come from further back than I anticipated."

"I'm not surprised. Fifteen hundred years is quite a long time, is it not? And until I came here, time had lost all sorts of meaning for me."

Before her little 'break' with erasing her own memory, she had barely remembered her own time there. Most of her life had been spent fighting and fighting and fighting against her will. If England could remember that far back, she doubted it

"I doubt you would have known me. We are from two different worlds after all. I do not if I myself existed or some other did in my place." Zelda had told her he knew of King Arthur and his legends so Arturia supposed some version of herself had existed there.

"Tell me, are you born of the land itself there? The Will of Albion itself given flesh somehow?"

"For some, it is. I was only a child then, so it's a rather long time for me." Maybe it would not have felt so to China, ancient bastard that he was, but England couldn't exactly ask.

Though he obviously didn't know her, and it was very possible that she came from a world without nations like him, he hoped that he was able to serve some iteration of her in his world.

"I think the will is a good way to put it." Despite himself, England found his hand venturing to his chest, searching out the spot underneath which his composite soul rested. "I represent the nation of people that call themselves English. As long as those people exist, so do I."

"That's comforting to hear. Where I come from.... well.... most people don't realize it, but humanity has a will intent on keeping itself alive. It's an abstract thing, very hard to describe. The one time I tapped into it, I had lain dying and it appeared more as a form of light instead of a person such as yourself."

She paused for a moment to search out her next words to him. How did she even begin to explain who she had once been? What she had done? What she had allowed to happen?

Well. From the beginning, obviously.

"When I lived in Albion, I was called Arthur, Arthur Pendragon, the only living child of Uther Pendragon. The name I was given at birth, however, was Arturia."

The beginning that Arturia chose definitely caught England's attention. His poker face was dreadful on a good day, but hearing something like that meant there was no hope whatsoever for hiding his surprise.

Arthur Pendragon. A name mired in legend, and definitively morphed by it. But England remembers the man as he was — admired him enough to take his name, in fact. Obviously, as the one in front of him was a woman, her story would be quite different. But to know that she was somehow his once and future king in her life filled him with a silent awe, and certain respect.

He didn't want to get ahead of himself on that assumption, though. So, for clarification, he prompted, "The very same Arthur Pendragon that would become King of the Britons?"

"Was King of the Britons. Was. I have not been a King for a very long time, Mr. Kirkland, nor do I think I am worthy of the title of King anymore," she said quietly, looking away from him and to the crowd once more. It was easier to explain this if she were not looking at him.

"In fact, I fear I may have brought my Kingdom to ruin in my foolish quest to find a way to save it, thanks to the deal I made with the Will of the World."

She paused a moment, contemplating how to explain it next and decided to ask him a question instead to give herself time.

"That boy you are always with. Is he like you? What country is he?"

England had half of a mind to fight her on that matter, because he does not dethrone his precious rulers so easily, metaphorically speaking. The only reason he held his tongue is because he didn't know how her situation differed from that of the Arthur he knew. She already said she had a different name; who knew what course her reign took, especially given her enigmatic reference to some kind of deal?

He assumed she would tell him when she was ready, so for now, he focused on her question instead of her tale. "He is, yes. He didn't come into being until long after your time."

England shifted a bit, casting a brief glance over at the stock of nutrition bars and water. "As you know him, he's a colony by the name of Virginia, or New England. But eventually he becomes the independent nation of the United States of America."

That made her stare at him in surprise. From what she had learned from the Grail during her time as a Servant, America would be one of the most powerful nations in the world. Rich, large, powerful, involved in the politics of every nation across the globe. To think such a tiny child would grow up to be such a nation was almost as humbling as knowing her own in a way was sitting right next to her.

"He is.... he is going to be quite powerful one day should we manage to return to our worlds. I can only imagine what sort of person he will grow to be with this place's influence upon him at such a young age or what effect that might have upon his people."

Loken looks down at her, charred from electricity burns and tired from the fight, and says.

"Victory. Been a while since I've had one of those. A real one, I mean."

He smiles a bit.

"Could do with some wine and storytelling, though."

"We will have to find wine first," Arturia says, leaning her head back to look up at him. Part of her wonders if Rider--Iskander--would be shorter than Garviel or not.

"But yes. This is the first time we have gone downstairs and been this successful." The last time her group had been the only one without casualties and that was only because they had lucked out and run into Aria.

"Maybe it's time for me to let go of despair and loneliness, and find some hope again, instead of just honor."

He smiles at Arturia, and for a moment, his face changes. No longer grim and dark, an angel of death, but the hero he was supposed to be once more.

"Wine may be asking too much, but.. I'm willing to try."

The smile is returned, the first truly easy smile she's ever given in centuries.

"Despair and loneliness, I've learned, are not productive when you are trying to help others. You cannot help them unless you have hope for their futures." And hope for her own, for the very first time in her long life.

"We will have to ask around, but if not we must partake of it before we finally go our separate ways even if we must make it ourselves."

Garviel thinks about that for a moment. Hope. Hope is something he gave up long ago, to be the hope for others. But now, just for a moment, at the behest of a friend, a Knight, he has a little for himself, and everyone here.

"Let's do that, then."

just this once, everybody lives!

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