[It's all he can really say when the memories of the past, old and stretched thin as they are, come to light. They are to be shared and scrutinized at the leisure of the master. This existence is a never ending comedy, really. His brother would laugh.
It is two different moments on display here. On one side of the tree is the beginning of the journey and on the other; one who is requesting it to end. He languishes in the bows of the great sakura tree of a world he'd be happy to never visit again. Chances are he will not.
"You cannot afford the journey you wish to take. Not by half. You have nothing precious to you. Nothing that is worth a anything to you. That which you did hold value in is far from this world now." The woman who speaks is tall and elegantly dressed. A witch she claims. That of time and space. Though he cannot see that version of himself from that moment in time he remembers the day well. It's one of his clearer memories. "Perhaps we can make a deal with what little you do have."
And on the other side... a man taller than he in rugged traveler attire. His cocky smile replaced with a far more concerned demeanor. It is unpleasant to witness and even more so when it is aimed at him. Pity... "We've done what the witch has asked for. We played our part. And you're not going to like hearing this but I think it might be worth it to go home. What good is it to die so far from the sakura trees? Go now before you're stranded somewhere. You may yet find them if you stay in one place."
The most frustrating thing for an elder sibling is when the younger one speaks truth. But not yet... He can't stop yet.]
Ah, there's my cute little master. [He leans forward on the great branch, waiting to see her unimpressed and angry face as she approaches the scene.] It's such a shame... The vampires don't exist here either. I had hoped if you saw how cute Subaru~ was you'd understand my wish better. Alas... You simply get to look upon my little brother. He's much less cute. Especially when he speaks.
[She would have hoped that being exposed to the memories of her Servants would summarily involve not speaking of them again, letting them pass as the inconvenience they are.
She certainly didn't anticipate witnessing them and being subjected to his immediate commentary, unable
Carol has enough of her own memories to deal with. She doesn't need the rice paper-thin scroll of his own stretched across her vision - unless she can burn him, too, to fuel the power to fight and win this Holy Grail War.
As the deal with the witch of time and space plays out in front of them, Carol crosses her arms.]
I don't think I understand the litmus you use for cuteness. [That sounds like an invitation to discuss it, so quickly she supplies,] I don't want to know.
[He remains where he is upon the tree looking down at her with an ever present smile. The light never quite catches his eyes when he looks at her giving insincerity to his words at every turn.]
It was not. [He leans forward some from his branch within the bows, causing a small torrent of petals to fall upon the master below.] The power to travel from realm to realm freely is a costly one. It requires you to give up the most precious thing you have. That was not a price I could pay.
Instead, I gave up half my power. [He places a hand over the blind eye.] For limited and random travel. That gift has nearly run its course. Our little war may be my remaining chance.
So... if you had any doubts in my conviction in regards to our partnership you can rest assured that I intend to take it quite seriously.
[Carol folds her forearm over her head as if blocking the sun, though this time it's only to limit the cascade of petals down toward her. She can only block so many.]
So I fight alongside a Servant who's had to trade his spirit twice to see results.
[Her voice is almost unreadable. Is she judging the fact that he had to bargain for such power twice, and it wasn't enough? Or does she see in him the process of rolling from body to body, all the important things contained in a new vessel but long ago no longer the woman who was originally born?
They have both transcended and discarded humanity for the sake of their wishes.]
I don't doubt you, Caster. Not because you are desperate, but because of the rage you would feel if you were insulted by the humiliation of losing.
[Is she judging? Is she frustrated? He knows not. In the end it doesn't really matter what she thinks of him.]
There's no price too great to see one's wish fulfilled. If I have to chip away at every part of me to see it done then that is what it will take.
[The Servant slips out of the tree he's been perched on, brushing past the illusion of his brother with a wave of his hand. The chain that holds his medallion chimes gently with each step he takes towards her.]
Right you are, Master. I have no intention of losing. Not that I doubt the longing of the others but I find it hard to believe that their conviction to this cause will parallel my own. I have toiled for ages with no success. My options limited. Quite frankly, there is very little I wouldn't do to see myself the victor of this royal.
[He says it all with a smile as if he was speaking of nothing more but the weather.]
I would hope that I have an equally tenacious Master. One who would also stop at nothing to win it all.
[Though that wretched food festival ended long ago and Carol doesn't have any particular need to eat that she must indulge, Carol finds herself alongside her Servant perusing boardwalk food attractions nonetheless. It is a brief, if meaningless, respite from the beach and spa where all participants in this war have been crammed together, predators stalking in a sandy cage around their prey.
It's almost time. Their plan will come to fruition soon. She's distracted, even manically focused on the work ahead, and so when she gestures to her Servant who for once walks at her side and doesn't lurk in the shadows, it's with equal detachment.]
Caster. We're likely to be busy this week, so you should maintain your magical acuity. Choose whatever you need to eat. The money isn't an object.
[They don't linger around each other very much. He keeps an eye on her through the eyes of his shadow shinigami and that's good enough. He has a tired air about him, creating sakura trees with his magic and then resting in their branches. Watching. Waiting.
Always. Always. Always.
Today is different. She's requested his presence and he walks beside her humming, eyes on the horizon. The prospect of food is more than enough to make him focus up.]
Oh? [He steeples his fingers together.] Then I shall make the same request from our first meeting.
[She distantly remembers him asking for it when they first met. She remembers refusing him, too, sending Caster out to do the reconnaissance necessary to build their advantage. She'd bought an ice cream cone she never ate at the food festival, too, a prop that never helped her blend in quite as much as she'd planned to. The weeks leading up to this had been distracting enough.]
That's fine. [It's cheap, and she had said that it would be no object regardless.] What's the significance of that food to you?
It being a tasty treat is significant enough, no~?
[And that is where he'd leave it under normal circumstances. But there's something in the air that presses heavily against him. Fated combat feels inevitable tonight and the reminder that he is not often successful in what he does. He's spent more years chasing after memories than actually living.
The dull ache of a master that does not care for you is familiar indeed when he walks beside Carol.
So he opts, just for once, to be a little honest. Because there's no harm in it. Death, one way or the other, feels just around the corner and perhaps he's feeling just a touch sentimental.]
But if you are genuinely curious, I would say they represent... memories of mortality. My brother ran off to be the errand boy of a witch. And he would return with trinkets and treasures from the various places he'd been from time to time. Often it was food that did not exist in the world I lived in nor would it ever.
The last thing he brought to me was ice cream... in a shade of green that food should not have been with bitter chocolate pieces to offset the sweetness. And while I sampled this mysterious creation I was told of vampires that lived not far off.
My brother was already a pawn in the Witch's game and he was placing me on the board as well. Carelessly sliding me into opposition against forces that I had no care in. And when the game was won and all had played their part for better or worse there was no care for the aftermath. In the lives it shattered and shook. Balance has been restored, so they said, but I couldn't help but wonder... Balance for who, exactly? The witch and wizard that broke it to begin with? The little children whom all of this was for?
[He shrugs his shoulders as if it doesn't matter. At one point he'd have been inclined to burn them all, including the brother that brought him into this mess but that was worn out of him long before the conclusion of it all.]
A treat to punctuate both the beginning and the end of a very long journey. That's quite poetic, don't you think~?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Memory Share
[It's all he can really say when the memories of the past, old and stretched thin as they are, come to light. They are to be shared and scrutinized at the leisure of the master. This existence is a never ending comedy, really. His brother would laugh.
It is two different moments on display here. On one side of the tree is the beginning of the journey and on the other; one who is requesting it to end. He languishes in the bows of the great sakura tree of a world he'd be happy to never visit again. Chances are he will not.
"You cannot afford the journey you wish to take. Not by half. You have nothing precious to you. Nothing that is worth a anything to you. That which you did hold value in is far from this world now." The woman who speaks is tall and elegantly dressed. A witch she claims. That of time and space. Though he cannot see that version of himself from that moment in time he remembers the day well. It's one of his clearer memories. "Perhaps we can make a deal with what little you do have."
And on the other side... a man taller than he in rugged traveler attire. His cocky smile replaced with a far more concerned demeanor. It is unpleasant to witness and even more so when it is aimed at him. Pity... "We've done what the witch has asked for. We played our part. And you're not going to like hearing this but I think it might be worth it to go home. What good is it to die so far from the sakura trees? Go now before you're stranded somewhere. You may yet find them if you stay in one place."
The most frustrating thing for an elder sibling is when the younger one speaks truth. But not yet... He can't stop yet.]
Ah, there's my cute little master. [He leans forward on the great branch, waiting to see her unimpressed and angry face as she approaches the scene.] It's such a shame... The vampires don't exist here either. I had hoped if you saw how cute Subaru~ was you'd understand my wish better. Alas... You simply get to look upon my little brother. He's much less cute. Especially when he speaks.
no subject
She certainly didn't anticipate witnessing them and being subjected to his immediate commentary, unable
Carol has enough of her own memories to deal with. She doesn't need the rice paper-thin scroll of his own stretched across her vision - unless she can burn him, too, to fuel the power to fight and win this Holy Grail War.
As the deal with the witch of time and space plays out in front of them, Carol crosses her arms.]
I don't think I understand the litmus you use for cuteness. [That sounds like an invitation to discuss it, so quickly she supplies,] I don't want to know.
It sounds like your deal wasn't enough.
no subject
It was not. [He leans forward some from his branch within the bows, causing a small torrent of petals to fall upon the master below.] The power to travel from realm to realm freely is a costly one. It requires you to give up the most precious thing you have. That was not a price I could pay.
Instead, I gave up half my power. [He places a hand over the blind eye.] For limited and random travel. That gift has nearly run its course. Our little war may be my remaining chance.
So... if you had any doubts in my conviction in regards to our partnership you can rest assured that I intend to take it quite seriously.
no subject
So I fight alongside a Servant who's had to trade his spirit twice to see results.
[Her voice is almost unreadable. Is she judging the fact that he had to bargain for such power twice, and it wasn't enough? Or does she see in him the process of rolling from body to body, all the important things contained in a new vessel but long ago no longer the woman who was originally born?
They have both transcended and discarded humanity for the sake of their wishes.]
I don't doubt you, Caster. Not because you are desperate, but because of the rage you would feel if you were insulted by the humiliation of losing.
no subject
There's no price too great to see one's wish fulfilled. If I have to chip away at every part of me to see it done then that is what it will take.
[The Servant slips out of the tree he's been perched on, brushing past the illusion of his brother with a wave of his hand. The chain that holds his medallion chimes gently with each step he takes towards her.]
Right you are, Master. I have no intention of losing. Not that I doubt the longing of the others but I find it hard to believe that their conviction to this cause will parallel my own. I have toiled for ages with no success. My options limited. Quite frankly, there is very little I wouldn't do to see myself the victor of this royal.
[He says it all with a smile as if he was speaking of nothing more but the weather.]
I would hope that I have an equally tenacious Master. One who would also stop at nothing to win it all.
week 3 // before the last dance
It's almost time. Their plan will come to fruition soon. She's distracted, even manically focused on the work ahead, and so when she gestures to her Servant who for once walks at her side and doesn't lurk in the shadows, it's with equal detachment.]
Caster. We're likely to be busy this week, so you should maintain your magical acuity. Choose whatever you need to eat. The money isn't an object.
no subject
Always. Always. Always.
Today is different. She's requested his presence and he walks beside her humming, eyes on the horizon. The prospect of food is more than enough to make him focus up.]
Oh? [He steeples his fingers together.] Then I shall make the same request from our first meeting.
I would like ice cream~
no subject
[She distantly remembers him asking for it when they first met. She remembers refusing him, too, sending Caster out to do the reconnaissance necessary to build their advantage. She'd bought an ice cream cone she never ate at the food festival, too, a prop that never helped her blend in quite as much as she'd planned to. The weeks leading up to this had been distracting enough.]
That's fine. [It's cheap, and she had said that it would be no object regardless.] What's the significance of that food to you?
no subject
[And that is where he'd leave it under normal circumstances. But there's something in the air that presses heavily against him. Fated combat feels inevitable tonight and the reminder that he is not often successful in what he does. He's spent more years chasing after memories than actually living.
The dull ache of a master that does not care for you is familiar indeed when he walks beside Carol.
So he opts, just for once, to be a little honest. Because there's no harm in it. Death, one way or the other, feels just around the corner and perhaps he's feeling just a touch sentimental.]
But if you are genuinely curious, I would say they represent... memories of mortality. My brother ran off to be the errand boy of a witch. And he would return with trinkets and treasures from the various places he'd been from time to time. Often it was food that did not exist in the world I lived in nor would it ever.
The last thing he brought to me was ice cream... in a shade of green that food should not have been with bitter chocolate pieces to offset the sweetness. And while I sampled this mysterious creation I was told of vampires that lived not far off.
My brother was already a pawn in the Witch's game and he was placing me on the board as well. Carelessly sliding me into opposition against forces that I had no care in. And when the game was won and all had played their part for better or worse there was no care for the aftermath. In the lives it shattered and shook. Balance has been restored, so they said, but I couldn't help but wonder... Balance for who, exactly? The witch and wizard that broke it to begin with? The little children whom all of this was for?
[He shrugs his shoulders as if it doesn't matter. At one point he'd have been inclined to burn them all, including the brother that brought him into this mess but that was worn out of him long before the conclusion of it all.]
A treat to punctuate both the beginning and the end of a very long journey. That's quite poetic, don't you think~?