capeandcowllogs

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WHO: Saber and YOU
WHERE: Around the Porter building, radiating outward
WHEN: 28 November
WARNINGS: None
SUMMARY: Freshly ported to the City, Saber goes scouting and hopes she turns up one of her allies.
FORMAT: Prose to start, tagger's choice

Typically, when awakening in a strange place, there was a certain protocol the beings nebulously called Servants, named by the magi who summoned them for the purpose of fighting for the Holy Grail. Under normal circumstances, the first thing a newly-summoned Servant would have laid eyes on would have been her Master.

It had not been entirely unlike when Emiya Kiritsugu had summoned her, but the inherent need to recite her part in that ritual had failed to surface, to say nothing of any memory of being defeated and returning to her own time first. But what had been a more pressing concern was the decided lack of connection to the Holy Grail, which not only imparted knowledge of the era and her potential opponents, but kept her anchored to the physical plane. That lack of anchor would have been worrying if not for the fact that she no longer seemed to need one.

The petite blonde was conflicted. The lack of a Grail meant no Masters and by extension no Command Spells she was compelled to obey; for all intents and purposes she was as free to act as independently as any Archer-class Servant. Similarly, she was no longer dependent on the elusive artefact to anchor her to the material plane. On the other hand, the existence of the Grail -- and more importantly, its wish-granting property -- had been her entire reason for submitting to the Holy Grail War in the first place.

Saber would have demanded answers from her would-be Master, had there been one to ask. Instead, she had been greeted by a mechanical voice requesting her name. Belatedly she realised she should have been more cautious; in her bemusement she had given her true name instead of her class designation and immediately cursed herself afterward. The "hero alias", on the other hand, had been even more bewildering. Had the machine meant her class designation or her title as the King of Knights? She decided on the former; at least that would afford her some level of anonymity...if other Servants had been summoned to the unfamiliar city as well. For the moment, she sensed none. However, that might have been due to her new status, whatever that was. Nearly all her abilities as a Servant had been sealed or removed, leaving a few of those she had possessed during her natural lifetime. As best she could tell, Arturia was human again. She wasn't sure whether to be glad or frustrated by her renewed status.

Whatever the situation truly was, Saber was now on her own. The request to be returned to her proper place had been met with frustrating silence, and what scant information she had been given wasn't anything she could use in the immediate sense. Simply staring at the strange device she had been given would yield no answers. The petite blonde decided that, if this was no conventional summoning, the possibility that either her Master or Irisviel -- her decoy Master and whose company Saber admitted she would have preferred -- had likewise been "summoned" existed. Perhaps it might not have been the wisest course of action, but the King of Knights decided that reconnaissance of the city was in order. And if her search turned up Kiritsugu or Irisviel, all the better.

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He's cutting through a park not far from the building the 'Porter is in on the way back from one of his jobs when he sees it. There, several meters away, on the edge of the park. A flash of golden hair just like the woman he knows as Saber.

After just a second of staring, Archer checks himself in silent rebuke. There are many people in this City with golden-blonde hair, and this woman doesn't even have it styled anything like Saber's, nor is she wearing an outfit he ever saw on her. He starts to turn away, satisfied with this explanation--

--when he catches sight of her face.

"...Saber."

The name, muttered in alarm and near-awe, escapes him before he can stop it.

It was not especially crowded, and Saber was thankful that she was able to move about with relative ease with nary a cautious glance in her direction. But that comfortable distance made her name being spoken unexpectedly stand out all the more. The voice reminded her of Kiritsugu, and the white hair reminded her of Irisviel, but the unfamiliar man was quite obviously neither of them.

Her mild surprise echoed in her expression as she turned to regard the speaker with a faint curiosity. While she could no longer sense the presence of her fellow Servants, at least her natural battle senses should have alerted her to potential aggression. No need to be on guard just yet.

"Forgive me, but I have no recollection of our meeting. Though you are correct; I am Saber. Might I ask your name?" Cautious she might be, but proper manners were proper manners.

He had no intention of attacking her. In truth, he had no idea what to do with her at all, and for a few seconds, it showed on his face in the blank stare he was giving her. Somehow, he'd gotten used to it just being him and Rin here, and hadn't expected anyone else to stir things up...

But that had been foolish. The surprise fades away, to be replaced by a coolly neutral expression. So she remembered nothing of the war. Fine. At least that meant there was someone here from it who was earlier in the timeline than Archer himself. He composed himself.

"My name? Wow, that's quite the faux pas, don't you think? I'm an Archer." Having confirmed his Servant status to her, he folded his arms. "If you don't remember meeting me, you don't need to know more than that."

So, he was a Servant, after all. Her wariness flared slightly, but Saber maintained her impassive mask, save for the slightly raised eyebrows. "It is only proper, given that you know who I am, yet I do not know who you are. Class designations suffice well enough for that purpose," she replied evenly.

He certainly wasn't the Archer she remembered; the gold-armoured arrogant braggart of a king. But from what Saber had gathered from their brief exchange already, she suspected she wasn't dealing with a fellow knight such as Lancer.

"Then, a question not pertaining to the Holy Grail," she remarked coolly through slightly narrowed eyes. "Am I to believe that we have indeed been summoned by, not Masters, but a machine of some sort?"

He smiled now, in the most smugly condescending manner he could manage. After all, that was the best way to hide the bitterness. It always had been. "I guess I can answer that one for free. Yes, it's true. Or at least, all the evidence points that way. The machine summoned us here, and she can dismiss us at will."

He let pause pass by, just for a few seconds, and then he shrugged. "Well, it's only natural. We may not even be Servants here. After all, we can exist without a Master."

Saber carefully suppressed a glare. Was smug condescension a prerequisite for the Archer class? Ironically, that she could be arrogant in her own way never occurred to her. Perhaps it was not the arrogance itself that bothered her so much as the affront to the ways of chivalry. But the non-committal mask remained firmly in place, a testament to her self-discipline.

The information, on the other hand, was maddening. Helping out the citizens of a foreign city was one thing, but she had people of her own to save first. She began to ask if there was any particular criteria for being returned, but she reconsidered; she probably wouldn't get a straight answer out of the Archer.

At least her suspicions had been confirmed; whatever this machine was, it had some very disturbing powers which had flouted the physical laws of their own reality. "Due to this machine, which can turn Servants into something else entirely," she noted cautiously. "Or did it merely summon us?"

There was a flash of a smile on his face as Saber intuited something of the truth about the 'Porter--a moment of near-satisfaction. He'd known she could figure it out, so of course she had. But he filtered it carefully through the mask as always, so it only came out as smugness and not hopeful pride. "You wish it had merely summoned us, right? Then it'd be way easier to get back to the fight. You're all business as usual, Saber."

He gave another shrug, this one small and slight. "But you're right. If it's summoned us, it's done so entirely anew. We've got all-new bodies here, different than our Servant ones, so it must have recreated us entirely in new vessels."

He certainly knew her in some ways...to an unsettling degree. It was certainly true that if it had only summoned them that it would make returning to Fuyuki City easier. But did the Archer know about her wish, and that the Holy Grail itself was no less of a tool to her than she had been to Kiritsugu? Or that, if she was presented with a more practical path, that she would take it? He wasn't asking, and she would not tell someone she wasn't convinced she could trust...yet.

As frustrating as her new-found status was concerned, the fact that she had been changed at all presented a number of possibilities, namely that she might not even need the Holy Grail if something even more powerful could be invoked. The problem now was finding out more about it, and she suspected that even if Archer knew more, he wouldn't tell her. Not directly, anyway.

"Is it even truly a machine at all, if it can grant Servants completely different vessels? Such an artefact would be even more powerful than the Grail itself."

He knew a lot--but he wasn't about to show his entire hand here and now. That would just be stupid, and he'd grown out of that particular phase a while back. So instead Archer continued to regard Saber most coolly. "Well, it's certainly a strange one. Such a thing would be really powerful in our world. Here...? I'm not so sure. It's got to have something to do with the Second Magic, but it's not like that's something anyone really understands. All I know is that it's got a lot of power over us: the imPorts. Whether we were as powerful as heroic spirits, or regular humans, before it took us."

He paused, looking hard at her, that cool regard cracking slightly to show real interest of some sort. "You're not thinking of trying to bargain with it, are you? Don't bother. It's only interested in toying with us, not reasoning with us."

The nature of the thing was downright confusing, and not because Archer hadn't explained it well. Their world was comprised of myriads of complex physical laws that even energy they called "magic" conformed to. The Grail was an artefact of metaphysical energy, so its control over summoning and anchoring Servants made a certain amount of sense even if it flouted the world's nature. But a thing which summoned humans with true physical bodies, too?

"It would have to exist in both planes," she mused out loud.

Bargain? Saber regarded the white-haired Servant curiously. "You speak as if this machine possesses a will, or at least a consciousness."

A faint smile flickered across his face. It was still an insufferable sort of smile, though: smug and condescending. "Is that so strange? Perhaps it's not even a machine at all, but a spirit inhabiting one. Regardless, it has a name--Lachesis--and it may well have a will. Don't underestimate the thing."

Edited 2012-12-10 04:23 (UTC)

Skilfully, Saber managed to suppress a twitch of her eyebrow. Whether o not he meant to rub her the wrong way hardly meant that he didn't. She could pinpoint her annoyance precisely: the smug arrogant demeanour. She was generally not used to being looked down on, and she didn't like it any more than when Rider and the Archer she remembered did.

"Hmph. An artefact, then....if that is what it truly is. Something created through magecraft, possibly."

The possibility of a Holy Grail War to summon and control such a thing was apparently not an option, but that didn't mean there weren't other options...or that it created itself. But was that creator still alive and be willing to listen to reason?

"Whether a machine or an artefact, someone created it. Where is this person, should he still live?"

"That's the strange thing, Saber." He continued to take an almost offensively familiar tone--but now there was a hint of seriousness in his words. What he was about to say actually had the potential to be important. "There was no magecraft here before the 'Porter was created. It seems someone tapped into it by accident."

His eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't find that so hard to believe--there are idiots in every world." And he gambled on something. "That boy you call a Master, I could see him doing such a stupid thing."

Archer didn't know for sure yet just when Saber came from. But this gave him the beginning of a way to find out.

The infuriatingly patronising, familiar tone was ignored for the moment, her previous mounting irritation replaced by surprise and concern. The conclusion she drew was of no comfort at all. "It shapes this reality?"

While the Holy Grail would certainly be capable of such a feat -- it would have to be in order to grant any wish, even those like hers which defied fate itself -- there were prerequisites which had to be met. Namely, the War to fill it with prana and choose the Master and Servant most worthy of its power. But an artefact acting on its own was a chilling thought, especially if it possessed its own will.

But the Archer's next part of the conversation threw her off completely. That it answered a part of her earlier worry that he somehow knew her was less of a mystery was a victory of sorts, but it only led to more questions.

Her obvious confusion made her briefly drop her guard, and she revealed which of the two magi who had accompanied her was, in fact, her Master. "Boy? My Master is a man: Emiya Kiritsugu."

He'd known she might say that name, and he'd thought he was prepared to hear it. But he wasn't: not dropped so casually from her lips. So as she spoke, a shadow passed through his eyes.

Then it was gone, and the mask was back in place. "I see. It's true, then...well, no matter. It's best this way, if you don't remember that kid." Archer shrugged. "Yeah, that's right. This Lachesis, it seems like she can change this whole world. Powerful stuff, isn't it? Too bad she's not interested in cooperating with beings like us."

Saber failed to suppress her slight frown; that was probably all she was going to get out of him at the moment regarding different Masters and Wars. Not that such information was going to be of much use to her at the moment, anyway; Arturia simply hated that there were so many unknowns, which made it hard to form any lasting strategies.

Her immediate concern was Lachesis. "For what purpose were we summoned, if it...

"...She," Saber corrected herself, though how a machine or artefact could possess a gender lay beyond her understanding. "If she has no interest in co-operation, what is it that she hopes to accomplish with such actions?"

[It wouldn't take long for Saber to spot a familiar face, though likely not a face she desired to see. A man seven feet tall with red hair would stand out anywhere, even more so when he is wearing a skirt. His route to get decent drink took him past the Porter tower, so it wasn't long at all before he saw her as well.]

Oh, now this is a surprise.

[It could have been worse, she reluctantly admitted, and her last glimpse of the King of Conquerors had been their defeat of Caster. She was more surprised than anything else, especially since this confirmed she couldn't sense her fellow Servants, and that surprise reflected in her expression.]

Rider...I had wondered if other Servants had been summoned here as well.

[He takes a moment to look her over as he confirms- She's like the other guy, and no longer counts as a Servant... Interesting.]

Sadly, it seems we are alone past ourselves and a strange Archer not from our war.

[She doesn't particularly like the scrutiny, but she keeps her expression as neutral as it usually is.]

So it would seem. And I have met this other Archer.

[What her opinion of him is. however, is hard to guess behind her mask.]

He seems to know of you. Is he an acquaintance of yours?

[She shakes her head slightly]

I have never seen him prior to my arrival.

Hm... Well, I'll hear more about it later, I'm sure.

Perhaps...though, he was maddeningly vague about certain things.

[At least she could get a straight answer out of the boisterous and open Rider]

How long ago did the machine summon you?

Eh, let's see... It's been nearly nine months by now, I think. Ah, time really flies...

[She couldn't hide the surprise quite so well this time]

To go that long without a Master...it would certainly prove that we no longer need them.

Indeed. Unfortunately, I have some other problems, though that Archer seems to have been lucky enough to escape them.

[She started to ask, but thought better of it. Instead, she thought of a more immediate concern.]

Such problems must mean there is no Grail present. I take it to mean that there is some manner of truce among Servants?

Something like that... More like, there's no point regardless.

From a strictly logical standpoint...but not all Servants need a reason to fight.

Perhaps. I think we all have our own motivations.

Such as conquering the world?

[ Rin's not likely to go outdoors. The last couple times she did, they have been full of death and staring down those who had died previously. However, it's not doing her a whole lot of good to sit around in her apartment watching the hands on the clock tick on by all while waiting for someone to return to her. That kind of dependency is unhealthy and when it comes to a Servant who doesn't remember their entire time together, Rin knows better than to take unnecessary chances. Especially when it comes to letting someone in close.

So she's not paying much attention when she's out walking today. Dressed in a red jacket and scarf, she's absentmindedly looking towards the other people who are also out, choosing to stay far away from them. Some creepy old guy, some bald guy who reminds her of Mr. Bradbury, some golden haired girl that looks strangely like Saber, a pup--!! ]

Huh, Saber? [ There's no way that's right, but she'll wave a hand. ] Saber!

[After meeting the Archer who had apparently known her from somewhere, Saber decided that she should probably not be as surprised when a stranger -- at least to her -- recognised her. But all the reasoning in the world couldn't keep her from being unsettled.

The young woman didn't particularly seem like a Servant...a Master, perhaps? One her initial surprise had passed, she allowed curiosity to colour her expression, and her chivalrous manners took over.]

Forgive me, but I have no recollection of our meeting. Might I ask your name?

[ Bwuh? Rin's had a pretty rough time in the city; between Archer's death in Venezuela, her emotions going haywire as a result of the very same virus, Minako's death, the deaths of at least sixteen others, then her own death? Yeah, it's been rough for her. So what little pleasurable hope she might have drawn from reuniting with her proper Servant leaves her out of breath as confusion seeps into her expression. ]

No recollection? [ Was this the fault of that 'Porter thing? No, because so far everyone she's seen come back from the dead seems to remember things. ] Hold on, you honestly don't remember me, Saber?

[ A conversation she had just a few days prior clicks in her mind and suddenly it makes sense. Not in the kind of sense that Rin prefers, because this kind leaves her alone again in that regard. ]

Ugh, you don't remember... [ Flipping through befuddlement straight into annoyance, her mood changes are as obvious as ever. ] It's me, Tohsaka.

[ Probably not the best way to introduce yourself, Rin. ]

[Not a Servant, then, to have given her name so freely. But Tohsaka...where had she heard that name before? It was vaguely familiar. But she shook her head as her confusion persisted.]

I fear that I have not...

[And then out of seemingly nowhere she recalled an observation Irisviel had made, almost an off-handed comment. A name presented itself, though at first she could not associate it with the Master of which Servant.]

Tohsaka...Are you related in any way to Tokiomi...?

[Then, the unpleasant memory surfaced and her demeanour soured slightly.]

If I am not mistaken, he is the Master of Archer.

Edited 2012-12-09 01:38 (UTC)

Nonsense.

[ Rin doesn't even notice the shift in the air between them as she holds up a hand to wave it around as though she were dismissing the thought. ]

I'm the Master of Archer, er, Saber...

[ Her pride doesn't last long enough to cultivate into ego as her hand lowers to her side in a limp manner. ]

How do you know my father's name?

[At this point, Saber couldn't mask her now-open confusion.]

How can that be? Irisviel had said...

[She stopped short at Rin's apparent relationship to Archer's Master. It was true she didn't have any special insight inot the families of the Masters, but somehow it didn't add up.]

...Your father?

Yes, my father.

[ Irisviel? The name doesn't ring a bell, but it is filed for later. ] Tokiomi Tohsaka was my father.

[ Was. The topic is enough to draw discomfort from the young teenager as her gaze averts Saber's own, finding interest in the grass beneath her. ]

He was killed ten years ago. [ She adds before Saber can ask about it. Better to come out on her terms than others. ]

Was...

[She's clearly surprised now]

..Ten years ago?

[She's thoroughly confused now. Was she to win the Holy Grail War? But if she had, why would she have remained in that era? Then a chilling thought occurs to her, and she tries piecing together all the new information. How else would she have been recognised?]

There was another Holy Grail War so soon after the Fourth?

Yes, that's correct. There was a problem with the conclusion of the Fourth that caused it to reappear so shortly after.

[ Rin explains without any hesitation. ~~That was her role pretty much in Fate/ after all.~~ ]

I don't know much of the events that took place, but I do know that as a result my father was killed. Clearly he wasn't the victor, so someone else during that time must have won.

[It's a lot to take in]

There are a few things that do not seem to make sense...

[Shaking her head]

However, if the Holy Grail is indeed corrupted, then my own battle...

[...Is pretty much pointless. She has to bury the internal angst for the moment and figure out what to do in the immediate sense.]

Perhaps I was summoned here for good reason, after all. Hoever, the machine responsible was infuriatingly vague on that point.

Edited 2013-01-21 22:12 (UTC)

[ It's probably not a good idea to tell her she was brought here to be Rin's proper Servant since Archer is doing a poor job of it. It's also probably not a good idea to tell her that she was more than likely brought here to counter Archer ~~since Rin still doesn't know about Rider oops~~. ]

Who knows? I arrived and shipped off to another country within a couple days. There's a lot of strange incidents that occur here and to be frank, this place could use a hero like yourself, Saber.

[Rin needn't worry, Archer just strikes her as being a huge jerkface, somewhat more tolerable than the ones she was just dealing with beforehand to include her Master.]

Strange in what way...aside from those who are not Servants being summoned? I had been under the impression the situation is dire, but what this machine deems a 'hero' seems to be some matter of debate.

[ Well, there was the time they tried to kill them all with a virus. At least that's the gist of it in her mind, but no need to worry Saber. ]

I don't know much of the politics here, but individuals like ourselves are frowned upon by the populace. That sort of thing. [ Completely helpful. Not. ]

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Sorry for the late, router died T^T

it must have taken my rp drive with it HA, now I counter apologize for being late <3

Ugh, tell me about it T^T RL sapped all my drive this week

stupid RL /beats it into submission

I will be so glad when cold season ends

just a few more months e_e;