Servant Saber (Arturia Pendragon) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
everdistant_utopia) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
capeandcowllogs2012-11-28 06:50 pm
everdistant_utopia) wrote in capeandcowllogs2012-11-28 06:50 pm
Entry tags:
[Open]
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.
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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?"
no subject
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."
no subject
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?"
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
"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."
no subject
no subject
"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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
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."
no subject
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."
no subject
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?"