ARCHER ♤ an unknown hero. ♤ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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capeandcowllogs2013-02-22 02:48 pm
swordedpast) wrote in capeandcowllogs2013-02-22 02:48 pm
Entry tags:
The way we used to carry on
WHO:Archer (swordedpast) and Minako (xxii_thefool)
WHERE: Just outside the Pie Hole.
WHEN: Thursday, February 21st.
WARNINGS: None to speak of.
SUMMARY: Archer tries to clear up some things in the aftermath of the Shadow Märchen plot.
FORMAT: Prose.
It's been a week since Valentine's Day. It's been a day and change since the news began to filter in about regime change in Southwest Phoenicia, where the imPort Jenny Quantum had taken over. And it's been a good two weeks since the last time Archer so much as spoke to Minako, right before his Shadow took over. So it might be surprising to find him waiting outside the Pie Hole for her tonight.
He's not lurking in the shadows. He's sitting on a bench, dressed all in black without the accents of red, his jacket still slightly rumpled from travel. His face is expressionless as he waits and watches.
* * *
There is not a whole lot of bounce in Minako's step as she leaves the Pie Hole, once she's finished helping Ned clean up. For all that she's had a good two weeks to recover without any new incidents popping up, she still looks tired.
She has her messenger bag over her shoulder with her Evoker and her work uniform in it, and the pink headphones that were her Christmas present are around her neck, music already playing as she steps outside, takes a moment to stretch, and then starts walking: "...lose all your possibilities and darkness covers you / and despair is about to swallow you up / I'll be the light that shines on you / which not even the king of the world can extinguish / so everything that makes me whole, I'll offer it to you now--"
She's almost right by the bench where he's sitting before it actually registers to her that he's there - something about the lack of red, maybe - and when it does she stops short, blinking in vague surprise, and reaches up to click off her mp3 player. "Archer. Were you waiting for me?"
* * *
He doesn't answer the question directly. But his cold grey eyes are locked on her face, and they stay there for a moment longer before he says, in flat tones, "Your taste in music still leaves something to be desired." He gets to his feet. "I'll put up with it. I should make something clear, and there are some things I want to know."
* * *
A couple seconds or so pass without much reaction from Minako; she just kind of looks at him for a bit there before finally she lets out a breath in a little sigh and offers a tiny, rueful half a smile. "...right here, or can I go and get something to drink? It sounds like this might take a little time."
* * *
Archer blinks. The cold, remorseless mask cracks to let in a little honest confusion. "Who asks a question like that?" His voice has allowed a bit more personality to creep in as well: he sounds halfway indignant. She thinks she can ruin his drama? "Go and get your drink. I don't intend to have anything to do for a while after this."
* * *
Minako looks faintly apologetic, but that hint of a smile doesn't go away. "I've been working all day," she says, like it's an explanation for why she felt the need to wreck a perfectly good ominous beginning. "I'd have made up something to take with me if I'd known, but everything's already cleaned up now, so it can't be helped. Do you want anything?"
Possibly the worst part here is that she's not even being sarcastic. That question was perfectly earnest.
* * *
Archer just looks at her. He tries to bring the cold expression back to his face, he really does, but... "Idiot. Don't go out of your way for me. I'll--" He catches himself before he can offer to come with her and help with any additional clean-up. That's what the side of him she met in the labyrinth would have done. That's what the boy from long ago would have done. Why does she bring that out in him? "I don't need anything."
* * *
"...okay." She does not sound like she believes him, but either she knows better than to argue about it, or she just doesn't have the energy for it at the moment.
She doesn't go back into the Pie Hole; there's not much point in turning everything back on and having to clean up again just to get herself something to drink. Instead she walks off a little ways down the sidewalk and into a chain coffee shop on the corner, and comes back out about a minute later sipping iced mocha through a straw from a plastic to-go cup.
She doesn't say anything, just walks over to sit down on the end of the bench, setting her bag down beside her, and waits to hear what he has to say.
* * *
He's not sitting on the bench again when she returns; instead, just to make things difficult on himself, he's half-leaning and half-sitting on the top of it in a position that can't be very comfortable. After a moment of watching her in silence as she sits down herself, though, he reluctantly moves to sit properly on the bench, though he leaves a good distance between the two of them.
When Archer looks at Minako, it's awkwardly sidelong. He's keeping the emotion off his face again now. "'I choose this fate of my own free will.'"
* * *
At those words, Minako goes rather still.
Slowly, the hand holding her drink lowers to her lap, resting there lightly with her other hand loosely curled around the bottom of the cup, and she inclines her head in acknowledgement.
"...Yes."
* * *
"Why?" There's no emotion in his voice, either.
Why? Minako has to think about it for a little while, to parse from that one-word question what it is he's really asking her, and how she should respond. Eventually she turns her head towards him to ask, very simply, "How many people are there living in the world?"
* * *
It takes him no time at all to get it. The corner of his mouth turns down, ruining that neutral expression with something strangely petulant and sullen. Did she save every one of them? He never tried to save the entire world, never asked for that at all, but it would have been nice if he had. It would have been simple and easy.
Except he knows better than to believe that now. He smooths out that threat of a sulk and looks at her coldly once more. "It's a lot. But what is it that could threaten all those people? What could it be you were saving them from? Forces beyond human ken, or their own mistakes in the end?"
* * *
This, too, she has to think about; she tips her head back, looking up towards the sky as she considers the question. "I guess you could say... maybe it was a little of both." That seems like the most honest answer, she decides.
When she turns her face back toward him to meet his eyes again, it's with a question visible on her face. "What is it that you really want to know, Archer?"
* * *
Frustration passes across his face again. As much as he tries to keep it blank, she keeps cracking the mask. It's annoying. It's also annoying how she asks him things like that, as if he's capable of giving a straight answer any longer.
After a tense, irritated moment, he says, "I want to know if you're prepared, Minako."
* * *
Minako studies his face, trying to understand the reasons behind the frustration she can see there, and the meaning behind his questions. She can read him better than he would like, but still not nearly as well as she'd like to.
"Prepared for what?" she asks, and watches him for his answer.
* * *
Archer leans back against the bench, shifting his gaze away from Minako for a few moments so he can speak casually. "I'm not talking about dying. It doesn't matter if you're prepared for that or not, and it's over quickly." He takes a deep breath and hunches forward, lowering his head to stare down at his hands. He's having more and more trouble keeping the mask up; there's a profound weariness on his face. "I mean afterwards. You saved them all once, and you said you'll keep doing that after death. Do you even know what that means? You'll spend an eternity giving up everything to hand salvation to people at their worst only to watch them toss it away again and expect you to track through the mud to pick it up once more--!"
So much for staying emotionless. His voice breaks at the end there.
* * *
She sits and listens in silence, watching Archer while the ice melts in her mostly-forgotten coffee. As he speaks, Minako remembers his Shadow's labyrinth, the abyss that she saw there, and the images that played out when she looked down into it. The expression that comes over her face as the emotion breaks into his voice is one of dismay, and of concern... and, more than either, compassion. There's a moment where she starts to lift a hand, as though she'd reach out toward him, but then she thinks better of it.
Her voice is very soft. "Is that what it's been like for you?"
* * *
He doesn't know why he's saying these things to her so readily. He doesn't, but he could make a guess if he had to: here he is in a world without any of the components of his plan, and there's a girl with Saber's purity of spirit but more innocent, Rin's kindness but more practiced, and Shirou's stubborn determination (his own stubborn determination, long since discarded) but more wise. He wants to save her but he can't, so he just shows her someone who's even less capable of being saved.
"It's a nuisance that you saw that," he says, calm again now. When he meets her gaze again, there's no more desperate frustration on his face or in his voice. He sounds detached. "Yeah, it's like that. Trying to save people when I was alive was a tedious business, but I thought I just wasn't powerful enough, and if I served a higher power after death I'd really be able to save everyone in my sight at last." His eyes are empty. He's gone away somewhere else inside his head while he speaks. "But the only thing I was summoned to save people from were other people. So it was the same as always, and I couldn't help but give up. It would be stupid not to in that situation."
* * *
"...I see." And then Minako is quiet for a long while. Because she does see, now, maybe not perfectly, but enough to finally understand the trap that Archer - unwittingly and with nothing but the best of intentions - created for himself. And there's no simple way out of it. There may be no way out of it at all.
She doesn't want to believe that, chooses not to believe it, but either way, it's nothing that she can solve at this moment with a few carefully-chosen words, and she finds that she has no idea what to say to him at all.
In the end, the only thing she can think to say is probably only going to annoy him, but nevertheless she feels like she has to say it.
"I'm sorry."
* * *
Archer stays silent as long as she does, watching her with those empty eyes. Hanging on her words. So of course when she finally gives them to her, he makes an exasperated little noise and throws them away. "I'm not looking for your pity, Minako."
(He isn't looking for compassion from her, but he's found it all the same, and it makes its way into some of the cracks inside him. If she thinks he's worth saying things like that to, then maybe he's good enough to go back to Rin, and when he's around Rin--)
He sighs. "I'm beyond saving, so this isn't about me." A lie, but if he moves on quickly from it he doesn't have to acknowledge that. "But I'll be mad if you wind up the way I did."
* * *
"Pity and empathy aren't the same thing, Archer," Minako points out quietly. Then she looks down at her hands, letting out a sigh of fatigue. Maybe she pities him a little, too, for making on a much greater scale the same mistake Akihiko did - believing that power alone, enough power, would be enough to save people - and for never having had the chance to learn better. But that's not why she said 'I'm sorry.'
At his last comment, she can't help but crack a bit of a smile, just for a moment, because as much as she appreciates what he's really saying all she can think at first is 'even if I do, how would you know?' Which would definitely be inappropriate to say right now, so she lifts the straw of her no longer quite so iced mocha to her mouth, sips, and makes a vaguely disappointed face. Watery, of course. Figures. She drinks it anyway.
"I don't have any way to know what it'll be like after I die," she says eventually. "...really, I should probably be dead already, but there's one more promise I'd like to keep if I can, so I'm trying to hold on until then. But I think, maybe, I've been a little luckier than you were."
* * *
Archer nearly tells her that he barely deserves pity, much less empathy. The intention to do so is in his eyes as he stiffens a little in response. How can she feel so much for someone as empty and broken as he is? And of course that's the real problem. Losing that dream wouldn't have broken him if he'd had any sense of self underneath it.
He swallows the words. "You're appallingly stubborn, but you should live as long as you can and keep smiling while you're able, so it's fine."
* * *
"Thank you, Archer." Because he said that - and because she could see a bit of what he almost said on his face, and chose not to say - Minako summons up a smile. It's tired and not exactly unshadowed, but genuine nonetheless. "Long enough to keep my promise is fine. It'd be bad if the seal ended up breaking because I tried too hard to hold on to my life. But at least for as long as I'm here, there's no point in worrying about that."
* * *
The lines around his eyes soften. For a moment, it even looks like he's considering smiling himself. Even if she couldn't get him to accept it back then in the labyrinth, the boy who just wanted to make the people around him smile is still there in Archer. "Yeah. Have your fun while you're here, and trouble your senpai. There isn't much more you can do, but--"
Archer cuts himself off and rises to his feet. "There's one more thing."
* * *
"Hm?" She looks up at him as he stands, eyebrows lifting inquisitively and with no trace of apprehension. For all that those words could precede something ominous, after seeing that look on his face, it doesn't even occur to her to be concerned. If she were a little less tired, she might even be able to make a guess at what he's going to say. "What is it?"
* * *
Archer schools those hints of a smile out of his face. "Well, this is what I intended to say to you here in the first place. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked, but I suppose it can't be helped." He glances down at her with a serious expression. "That name you learned...don't say it to Rin. She may get the wrong idea."
* * *
Understanding flashes across Minako's face immediately, soon followed by a trace of fond exasperation. "I think I've said so before, but to make sure Rin doesn't the wrong ideas, it'd really be best for you to tell her about these things yourself."
Having said it, she smiles at him again. "Don't worry, I won't mention it to anyone. It's not my place to tell something like that, when I only learned it by a cheat to begin with."
* * *
A scowl settles over his face. It's not as nice an expression as the almost-smile, perhaps, but it's a lot better than the cold blankness. "It'll be bad if she learns this one. So it's good that you'll keep it to yourself."
Archer hesitates, his expression softening. Why does he feel like he wants to thank her? How embarrassing. So instead, he turns away. "Good night, Minako."
* * *
"Archer--" There are things she'd like to ask him, a dozen questions on the tip of her tongue. About him and Rin, about the name "Emiya," about the news she's heard recently about Southwest Phoenicia. Maybe sometime she'll even be able to ask some of the less intrusive ones. But now's not the time, and after only a beat, she swallows them and keeps smiling instead. "Good night."
swordedpast) and Minako (xxii_thefool)WHERE: Just outside the Pie Hole.
WHEN: Thursday, February 21st.
WARNINGS: None to speak of.
SUMMARY: Archer tries to clear up some things in the aftermath of the Shadow Märchen plot.
FORMAT: Prose.
It's been a week since Valentine's Day. It's been a day and change since the news began to filter in about regime change in Southwest Phoenicia, where the imPort Jenny Quantum had taken over. And it's been a good two weeks since the last time Archer so much as spoke to Minako, right before his Shadow took over. So it might be surprising to find him waiting outside the Pie Hole for her tonight.
He's not lurking in the shadows. He's sitting on a bench, dressed all in black without the accents of red, his jacket still slightly rumpled from travel. His face is expressionless as he waits and watches.
* * *
There is not a whole lot of bounce in Minako's step as she leaves the Pie Hole, once she's finished helping Ned clean up. For all that she's had a good two weeks to recover without any new incidents popping up, she still looks tired.
She has her messenger bag over her shoulder with her Evoker and her work uniform in it, and the pink headphones that were her Christmas present are around her neck, music already playing as she steps outside, takes a moment to stretch, and then starts walking: "...lose all your possibilities and darkness covers you / and despair is about to swallow you up / I'll be the light that shines on you / which not even the king of the world can extinguish / so everything that makes me whole, I'll offer it to you now--"
She's almost right by the bench where he's sitting before it actually registers to her that he's there - something about the lack of red, maybe - and when it does she stops short, blinking in vague surprise, and reaches up to click off her mp3 player. "Archer. Were you waiting for me?"
* * *
He doesn't answer the question directly. But his cold grey eyes are locked on her face, and they stay there for a moment longer before he says, in flat tones, "Your taste in music still leaves something to be desired." He gets to his feet. "I'll put up with it. I should make something clear, and there are some things I want to know."
* * *
A couple seconds or so pass without much reaction from Minako; she just kind of looks at him for a bit there before finally she lets out a breath in a little sigh and offers a tiny, rueful half a smile. "...right here, or can I go and get something to drink? It sounds like this might take a little time."
* * *
Archer blinks. The cold, remorseless mask cracks to let in a little honest confusion. "Who asks a question like that?" His voice has allowed a bit more personality to creep in as well: he sounds halfway indignant. She thinks she can ruin his drama? "Go and get your drink. I don't intend to have anything to do for a while after this."
* * *
Minako looks faintly apologetic, but that hint of a smile doesn't go away. "I've been working all day," she says, like it's an explanation for why she felt the need to wreck a perfectly good ominous beginning. "I'd have made up something to take with me if I'd known, but everything's already cleaned up now, so it can't be helped. Do you want anything?"
Possibly the worst part here is that she's not even being sarcastic. That question was perfectly earnest.
* * *
Archer just looks at her. He tries to bring the cold expression back to his face, he really does, but... "Idiot. Don't go out of your way for me. I'll--" He catches himself before he can offer to come with her and help with any additional clean-up. That's what the side of him she met in the labyrinth would have done. That's what the boy from long ago would have done. Why does she bring that out in him? "I don't need anything."
* * *
"...okay." She does not sound like she believes him, but either she knows better than to argue about it, or she just doesn't have the energy for it at the moment.
She doesn't go back into the Pie Hole; there's not much point in turning everything back on and having to clean up again just to get herself something to drink. Instead she walks off a little ways down the sidewalk and into a chain coffee shop on the corner, and comes back out about a minute later sipping iced mocha through a straw from a plastic to-go cup.
She doesn't say anything, just walks over to sit down on the end of the bench, setting her bag down beside her, and waits to hear what he has to say.
* * *
He's not sitting on the bench again when she returns; instead, just to make things difficult on himself, he's half-leaning and half-sitting on the top of it in a position that can't be very comfortable. After a moment of watching her in silence as she sits down herself, though, he reluctantly moves to sit properly on the bench, though he leaves a good distance between the two of them.
When Archer looks at Minako, it's awkwardly sidelong. He's keeping the emotion off his face again now. "'I choose this fate of my own free will.'"
* * *
At those words, Minako goes rather still.
Slowly, the hand holding her drink lowers to her lap, resting there lightly with her other hand loosely curled around the bottom of the cup, and she inclines her head in acknowledgement.
"...Yes."
* * *
"Why?" There's no emotion in his voice, either.
Why? Minako has to think about it for a little while, to parse from that one-word question what it is he's really asking her, and how she should respond. Eventually she turns her head towards him to ask, very simply, "How many people are there living in the world?"
* * *
It takes him no time at all to get it. The corner of his mouth turns down, ruining that neutral expression with something strangely petulant and sullen. Did she save every one of them? He never tried to save the entire world, never asked for that at all, but it would have been nice if he had. It would have been simple and easy.
Except he knows better than to believe that now. He smooths out that threat of a sulk and looks at her coldly once more. "It's a lot. But what is it that could threaten all those people? What could it be you were saving them from? Forces beyond human ken, or their own mistakes in the end?"
* * *
This, too, she has to think about; she tips her head back, looking up towards the sky as she considers the question. "I guess you could say... maybe it was a little of both." That seems like the most honest answer, she decides.
When she turns her face back toward him to meet his eyes again, it's with a question visible on her face. "What is it that you really want to know, Archer?"
* * *
Frustration passes across his face again. As much as he tries to keep it blank, she keeps cracking the mask. It's annoying. It's also annoying how she asks him things like that, as if he's capable of giving a straight answer any longer.
After a tense, irritated moment, he says, "I want to know if you're prepared, Minako."
* * *
Minako studies his face, trying to understand the reasons behind the frustration she can see there, and the meaning behind his questions. She can read him better than he would like, but still not nearly as well as she'd like to.
"Prepared for what?" she asks, and watches him for his answer.
* * *
Archer leans back against the bench, shifting his gaze away from Minako for a few moments so he can speak casually. "I'm not talking about dying. It doesn't matter if you're prepared for that or not, and it's over quickly." He takes a deep breath and hunches forward, lowering his head to stare down at his hands. He's having more and more trouble keeping the mask up; there's a profound weariness on his face. "I mean afterwards. You saved them all once, and you said you'll keep doing that after death. Do you even know what that means? You'll spend an eternity giving up everything to hand salvation to people at their worst only to watch them toss it away again and expect you to track through the mud to pick it up once more--!"
So much for staying emotionless. His voice breaks at the end there.
* * *
She sits and listens in silence, watching Archer while the ice melts in her mostly-forgotten coffee. As he speaks, Minako remembers his Shadow's labyrinth, the abyss that she saw there, and the images that played out when she looked down into it. The expression that comes over her face as the emotion breaks into his voice is one of dismay, and of concern... and, more than either, compassion. There's a moment where she starts to lift a hand, as though she'd reach out toward him, but then she thinks better of it.
Her voice is very soft. "Is that what it's been like for you?"
* * *
He doesn't know why he's saying these things to her so readily. He doesn't, but he could make a guess if he had to: here he is in a world without any of the components of his plan, and there's a girl with Saber's purity of spirit but more innocent, Rin's kindness but more practiced, and Shirou's stubborn determination (his own stubborn determination, long since discarded) but more wise. He wants to save her but he can't, so he just shows her someone who's even less capable of being saved.
"It's a nuisance that you saw that," he says, calm again now. When he meets her gaze again, there's no more desperate frustration on his face or in his voice. He sounds detached. "Yeah, it's like that. Trying to save people when I was alive was a tedious business, but I thought I just wasn't powerful enough, and if I served a higher power after death I'd really be able to save everyone in my sight at last." His eyes are empty. He's gone away somewhere else inside his head while he speaks. "But the only thing I was summoned to save people from were other people. So it was the same as always, and I couldn't help but give up. It would be stupid not to in that situation."
* * *
"...I see." And then Minako is quiet for a long while. Because she does see, now, maybe not perfectly, but enough to finally understand the trap that Archer - unwittingly and with nothing but the best of intentions - created for himself. And there's no simple way out of it. There may be no way out of it at all.
She doesn't want to believe that, chooses not to believe it, but either way, it's nothing that she can solve at this moment with a few carefully-chosen words, and she finds that she has no idea what to say to him at all.
In the end, the only thing she can think to say is probably only going to annoy him, but nevertheless she feels like she has to say it.
"I'm sorry."
* * *
Archer stays silent as long as she does, watching her with those empty eyes. Hanging on her words. So of course when she finally gives them to her, he makes an exasperated little noise and throws them away. "I'm not looking for your pity, Minako."
(He isn't looking for compassion from her, but he's found it all the same, and it makes its way into some of the cracks inside him. If she thinks he's worth saying things like that to, then maybe he's good enough to go back to Rin, and when he's around Rin--)
He sighs. "I'm beyond saving, so this isn't about me." A lie, but if he moves on quickly from it he doesn't have to acknowledge that. "But I'll be mad if you wind up the way I did."
* * *
"Pity and empathy aren't the same thing, Archer," Minako points out quietly. Then she looks down at her hands, letting out a sigh of fatigue. Maybe she pities him a little, too, for making on a much greater scale the same mistake Akihiko did - believing that power alone, enough power, would be enough to save people - and for never having had the chance to learn better. But that's not why she said 'I'm sorry.'
At his last comment, she can't help but crack a bit of a smile, just for a moment, because as much as she appreciates what he's really saying all she can think at first is 'even if I do, how would you know?' Which would definitely be inappropriate to say right now, so she lifts the straw of her no longer quite so iced mocha to her mouth, sips, and makes a vaguely disappointed face. Watery, of course. Figures. She drinks it anyway.
"I don't have any way to know what it'll be like after I die," she says eventually. "...really, I should probably be dead already, but there's one more promise I'd like to keep if I can, so I'm trying to hold on until then. But I think, maybe, I've been a little luckier than you were."
* * *
Archer nearly tells her that he barely deserves pity, much less empathy. The intention to do so is in his eyes as he stiffens a little in response. How can she feel so much for someone as empty and broken as he is? And of course that's the real problem. Losing that dream wouldn't have broken him if he'd had any sense of self underneath it.
He swallows the words. "You're appallingly stubborn, but you should live as long as you can and keep smiling while you're able, so it's fine."
* * *
"Thank you, Archer." Because he said that - and because she could see a bit of what he almost said on his face, and chose not to say - Minako summons up a smile. It's tired and not exactly unshadowed, but genuine nonetheless. "Long enough to keep my promise is fine. It'd be bad if the seal ended up breaking because I tried too hard to hold on to my life. But at least for as long as I'm here, there's no point in worrying about that."
* * *
The lines around his eyes soften. For a moment, it even looks like he's considering smiling himself. Even if she couldn't get him to accept it back then in the labyrinth, the boy who just wanted to make the people around him smile is still there in Archer. "Yeah. Have your fun while you're here, and trouble your senpai. There isn't much more you can do, but--"
Archer cuts himself off and rises to his feet. "There's one more thing."
* * *
"Hm?" She looks up at him as he stands, eyebrows lifting inquisitively and with no trace of apprehension. For all that those words could precede something ominous, after seeing that look on his face, it doesn't even occur to her to be concerned. If she were a little less tired, she might even be able to make a guess at what he's going to say. "What is it?"
* * *
Archer schools those hints of a smile out of his face. "Well, this is what I intended to say to you here in the first place. Unfortunately, I got sidetracked, but I suppose it can't be helped." He glances down at her with a serious expression. "That name you learned...don't say it to Rin. She may get the wrong idea."
* * *
Understanding flashes across Minako's face immediately, soon followed by a trace of fond exasperation. "I think I've said so before, but to make sure Rin doesn't the wrong ideas, it'd really be best for you to tell her about these things yourself."
Having said it, she smiles at him again. "Don't worry, I won't mention it to anyone. It's not my place to tell something like that, when I only learned it by a cheat to begin with."
* * *
A scowl settles over his face. It's not as nice an expression as the almost-smile, perhaps, but it's a lot better than the cold blankness. "It'll be bad if she learns this one. So it's good that you'll keep it to yourself."
Archer hesitates, his expression softening. Why does he feel like he wants to thank her? How embarrassing. So instead, he turns away. "Good night, Minako."
* * *
"Archer--" There are things she'd like to ask him, a dozen questions on the tip of her tongue. About him and Rin, about the name "Emiya," about the news she's heard recently about Southwest Phoenicia. Maybe sometime she'll even be able to ask some of the less intrusive ones. But now's not the time, and after only a beat, she swallows them and keeps smiling instead. "Good night."