Disclaimer: Fate/Zero, and Fate/stay night are owned by Type-MOON and their respective subsidiaries/partnerships/etc. This is written for non-profit entertainment purposes only.
Promises, Dreams
The lively streets of Fuyuki City were filled with the hustle and bustle of daytime activity. As a seafaring port town, the Winter City saw a healthy amount of tourists and various visitors throughout the year, although summer was of course the most popular time to visit the place. Fuyuki's winters were comparatively mild to other parts of Japan, but yet in spite of this it was only a certain type of person would bother making the trip in the first place…those with business in the town.
People like the two foreign women standing abreast of each other on this day.
There is nothing inherently unusual about foreigners in Fuyuki City. After all, foreigners have always been an integral part to Fuyuki's development and history, and several publically (and secretively) prestigious families have foreign blood in their lineages. However, there is something particularly noteworthy about these two.
Both of them were nobility. One was the daughter and "representative" of the Einzbern family, the other the most famous king of all time.
Neither one of them was "human" going by the standard definition. One, a homunculus and chosen to serve as the vessel, the other a Ghost Liner of the highest order, a Heroic Spirit bound to serve humans via usage of a contract by turning it a familiar known as a "Servant".
And they were here for war.
But in spite of the serious nature of their objectives, right now that would have to wait. It was not yet nighttime, not yet the time for battles to occur and for the Heaven's Feel to start in earnest. So for now…?
It was time for some girl-to-girl bonding.
With this in mind, this was how Irisviel Von Einzbern and the Servant Saber, Arturia Pendragon, spent the beginning of their day.
All throughout the morning the two women wandered through the downtown, taking in the sights and sounds that the city offered. Fuyuki might not be a tourist town on the level of other large cities, but what if had was more than enough to appease them. After all, when one lives a life as sheltered as Irisviel's, and when one is unable to love the simple joys of life due to being bound to her duty like Saber, even minor experiences such as these were exciting and wonderful and new. The inviting display windows of the stores lining the shopping district in Shinto were more than enough to entice anyone with money to burn and a healthy case of shopping fever.
Irisviel was absolutely enthused. Everything was so fabulous, so great, so fresh. Saber was more reserved in these matters, but the black-suited Servant was no less excited than her charge in her own subtle way.
While any number of the stores would have been more than enough to hold the attention of a young woman for hours on end, Irisviel's sense of adventure compelled her and her companion to further exploration of the foreign city. There were still several hours left until dusk, and the daughter of winter was playfully determined to make the most of the time remaining.
So in compliance with this voracious wanderlust, Irisviel and Saber found that their journey had taken them to a park located in the heart of the city.
A well-kept playground was situated on one side parallel to a large grassy field on the other. It was lush and regularly cared for, as evidenced by the state of the equipment and the grounds. A group of local children were hard at work nosily playing with each other, relishing in the lack of adult supervision and feelings of independence. It was this lively atmosphere – filled with vitality and hope – that had drawn Irisviel to the park. But the most interesting part about this was not the fact that it had grabbed her attention in the first place, but that something so relatively calm (relaxed, even) , so mundane in comparison to the energetic hustle and bustle of the downtown had managed to maintain her focus for so long and so easily.
Perhaps that was why she and Saber were so content to act as quiet observers to the comings and goings, to the innocent happiness before them ... Or they would have remained just that, were it not for one complex, yet so simple factor.
Fate.
A round black-and-white shape sailed away from the crowd of playing children towards the two women who stood there contentedly from the sidelines, where it eventually slowed down to a gentle roll before coming to a stop when it meekly tapped into Saber's shoe. In response, Saber picked up the boisterous little thing and gazed at it intently with her piercing green eyes.
The object appealed to Irisviel's inquisitiveness as effectively as anything else she had experienced in Fuyuki up to this point.
"Hmm?" She mused to herself. She took note of the tortoiseshell-like pattern. 'Those children were playing with it. I wonder what it is?'
"Hey! Over here!" A youthful voice called out that drew her attention away from the ball in Saber's hands.
A child was running over to them, obviously out of a strong desire to reclaim the ball and resume the game. As he came closer into focus, Irisviel could make out his physical appearance. He had a small yet vaguely athletic body befitting of an active young boy, had a distinctive mop of red hair on the top of his head, and a large pair of whimsical golden eyes brimming with the vigor of youth.
When the boy got closer, he came to a rather abrupt – almost comical – stop. The reason for this was a surprisingly simple one: his young, prepubescent mind finally noticed just exactly what he was running towards.
A pair of foreigners.
A pair of women foreigners.
A pair of exotically pretty women foreigners.
And he was receiving the lion's share of their attention.
It was only natural that his budding male mindset would basically shut down in response.
"Uh, umm, well, uh…uhh…excuse, m-me?..." the boy stammered, desperately trying to maintain himself as he tried to complete what he had to do, failing miserably all the way. After all, confronted with such unexpected people with exceptionally fair, lustrous hair and delicate features, how else could he respond?
"Well, hello there! I presume this is yours?" the women in white smiled beatifically at him, her pink-red eyes glittering with friendliness.
"Uh, y-yes." The boy nodded rather shyly in response, his cherry complexion a testament to the shyness he was feeling.
Irisviel remained smiling, seemingly oblivious (or perhaps all too aware) of the effect that she was having on the boy.
"All right then. Saber, would you be so kind?" The white-haired woman regarded the girl in the dark suit at her side with a curt nod. She walked over to the boy with ball in hand and kneeled down to his level. In stark contrast to her usual stern expression, it was instead gentle. For all the Servant had put up with regarding Irisviel and her whims, this was the first time that she had smiled like the way she was doing now. It was warm, wise, and in Irisviel's opinion it suited her much better than that serious look she always had. There was something different about Saber. She seemed softer, more at peace with herself and less like a machine that ran on duty.
Was it all because of this boy, this child?
How interesting.
"Here you go," Saber said warmly as she handed the boy the ball. He meekly took it from her, muttering something under his breath which sounded an awful lot like "Onee-san's so pretty…" while his eyes fluttered back and forth.
Naturally, he was turning an even brighter shade of red than what he was before, and he was starting to resemble a boiled lobster.
"By the way," the woman in white went on, "Would you tell me your name if I told you mine?"
Blink.
Blush.
Blink.
Blush.
Blink.
Blush.
"It's … Shirou. My name, it's Shirou."
"Thank you very much, Shirou. My name is Irisviel. But that is a rather long name, so if it's easier for you, then you may call me 'Iri'."
"I – Iri….s, s…sviel?" The boy tried saying the whole name to himself, with visible difficulty.
"Like I said, if it is too hard, then 'Iri' will do just fine." That warm smile again. How could he describe it? "Angelic" certainly fit, but there was something else to it…
"Oh, okay." He looked from Irisviel to Saber, then back to Irisviel, then back to Saber again – almost as if he had something to say but could not quite bring himself to speak.
Irisviel picked up on the cue.
"Oh! How rude of me. Allow me to introduce you to my bodyguard, Saber."
Saber nodded politely at the boy, and he feebly waved back. Shirou was still quite nervous, it seemd.
"Well then Shirou, I would like to apologize to you for taking up so much of your time." She said regarding the group of the other children. "After all, your friends must be waiting for you."
"Oh, oh! That's right!" Shirou exclaimed, his mind finally remembering his reasons for coming over in the first place. "Um, I have to go now. T-thank you for all you've done! Really, thanks!" With that, Shirou ran back across the field. Even from this distance the two could barely make out the playful teasing (that they were the cause of ) that the young boy they had just met was being put through at his own expense.
"Saber?"
"Yes, Irisviel?"
"Won't you join me?" Irisviel asked the hero as she sat down on the park bench. "I do not think that I want to leave this park just yet."
.
- ] | [ -
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At the behest of the Einzbern heiress Saber and Irisviel continued to sit at the bench and watch the children. At least an hour had passed since she had made her decision to continue watching, and to this Saber gave her approval.
As the game finished, Shirou saw that Iris and Saber were still there. When the two women noticed his awareness of them he was then waved over by Irisviel in a manner that was both insistent yet unhurried.
Shirou found himself in a bit of a dilemma. Should he overcome his shyness around them and go see the women once more, only to subject himself to his friend's taunting claims of him "holding out" on them by apparently having two much older foreigner "girlfriends" after the meeting? Or should he just leave them, get back to his normal life and write this day off as just an oddity amongst the other mundane ones – take the easy way out?
The answer is painfully obvious.
His curiosity, innocent naïveté and sense of honor got the better of him. Leaving women who want to talk to him hanging like that, even if they were strangers, is not gentlemanly or becoming of a would-be champion of justice. He'd deal with the teasing in stride when it happened. Screw what they thought.
Shirou obliged them.
So there they all were together on that same bench in the park – Irisviel and Saber each on one end, with the young Shirou sandwiched in the middle sitting between them. While it certainly was his own decision to join them, come what may, being in such close proximity with the two women was enough to shatter even his own initial resolve and cause him to clamp up and unconsciously moan nervously to himself.
Charming as this might be, Iri wanted Shirou to be as comfortable as possible. They could not all become friends if he was discomforted by their mere presence like this. They needed to find some common ground.
It was time for an icebreaker.
"Shirou?"
"Hmm?"
"Look here, I have something I want to show you."
"Huh? What is it?"
"Just take a look, silly." Irisviel pulled a high quality wallet out of her pocket and produced a photograph from it. On it was the image of a young girl garbed in winter clothes of a deep violet color standing against the backdrop of a snowy forest, looking as happy as can be. She was the spitting image of the woman he was sitting next to.
"Eh? She looks just like you."
"Well of course, she is my daughter after all."
"Eh! You?" Irisviel chuckled at his flabbergasted expression.
Put simply, Shirou was dumbfounded. He never would have expected her to be a mother, not looking so vibrant and young the way that she did, although he did realize that his own mother wasn't exactly old herself.
"Mm-hmm. She's my own flesh and blood. Her name is Illyasviel, and she's about a little older than you are." Irisviel wore an expression of serene happiness on her face, because this girl was one of the only people who meant the world for her. "I have a feeling that you two could be great friends for each other if you ever met. You're a boy of good character, after all."
"What makes you say that?"
"I can just tell. You could say it is 'woman's intuition'." Irisviel said this with a wry wink.
"Ah." That was as good enough an answer as any for Shirou.
"Sooo, do you think she's pretty? It would be no trouble to betroth the two of you, she wouldn't be so lonely, and you could do far worse than a princess~" An impish smirk bursting with mischievousness crept across Irisviel's face, a look both bewitching and foreboding at the same time
"I-Iriiiiiiiiiii! D-D-Don't ask me weird questions like thaaaaaaat!" Shirou wailed in embarrassment, his face burning hot enough to make the sun envious.
"I see. So that is what your answer, then~"
"Ehhhhhh….." His eyes watered over with unshed tears and his lips quivered.
"There, there. Do not take it so hard." Irisviel patted Shirou's head to comfort the lovably distraught lad. "It is all in good fun. (Although I am serious about that marriage proposal offer. Kind of.)
As he recovered from Irisviel's direct assault on his helpless, developing psyche, a thought occurred to him that snapped young Shirou out of his embarrassed stupor.
"Hold on. Wait a second. Did you say 'princess'?"
"Why, yes. I did."
"Does that mean you're…a queen?"
"Oh no, nothing like that." She admitted. "I'm just a princess too, or rather something like it."
"Hold on, if you're a princess…" You could almost see the gears turning in Shirou's head as he thought hard and hard about this revelation. "Then that must mean…Saber-san is a knight!"
To his right, Saber looked both surprised and amused in response to his conclusion.
"What makes you say that, Shirou?" Irisviel chuckled, likewise amused that such a young life was able to coerce such emotions from her "bodyguard."
"It's obvious – all nobles must be guarded by knights as per the chivalrous code of honor. Anything less than a knight won't give you as much loyalty. Royalty deserves nothing less. Plus, I could tell anyway that Saber-san is especially dedicated. She must be a knight!" Shirou declared as he gave his 'evidence', "…you are a knight, aren't you?..."
"Very observant of you, Shirou." Saber commended him, thoroughly impressed with his attitude and beliefs. "Tell me, do you know much about knights?"
"Eh, not really. I've only just started." The red-head scratched his head nervously at his own admission. "Could you, could you maybe be willing to tell me more…about them…and yourself?"
With a mentorly smile, Saber breathed in deeply and closed her eyes as she mentally prepared herself (but mostly just some minor theatrics for the sake of storytelling) to spin yarns of honor and chivalry.
"As a person, I have no story to tell of my own; I am simply a sword for my mistress at the beck and call, nothing more, nothing less. A knight exists to put others before themselves. My life is my duty, a duty to her, that is all."
"Oh? Don't you ever do anything for yourself? Don't you ever want anything for yourself?" Shirou asked, a surprisingly genuine cloud of concerning hanging over him.
She shakes her head regretlessly. "I can only allow myself rest after I have fulfilled my contract and kept my oath – that is the way things are."
"How close are you to doing that?"
"Closer than any of us here thinks." She smiled reassuringly to raise his now somewhat-dejected spirits.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Hmm, Irisviel, I do not know if I am allowed to divulge him with those details."
"Well, I'm sure that we can tell Sir Shirouabout our quest, can't we?" Irisviel looked at Saber in a special way, like there was some grand secret shared between the two of them, and if he were paying close attention he might have been tipped off a little.
Not that he would have cared anyway.
…Shirou "kyaaa'd" happily.
It's only natural.
Regardless of the true nature behind that brief interaction between the women, Saber seemed to have gained Irisviel's approval.
"Shirou, have you ever heard of the 'Holy Grail'? "
He shook his head. "Uh-uh. No, Saber-san."
"Well then, let me tell you of it." The Servant of the sword began, a hint of wistfulness apparent in her voice as she started to tell young boy sitting at her side the tale. "You see, Shirou, the Holy Grail is a very important and very sacred item to not only me, but to nearly the entire world. It is the chalice that collected the blood of the son of God, a man named Christ when he was sacrificed for converting others to the way of the lord, and it is said that the Grail is capable of making miracles happen."
A nostalgic smile spreads gently across Saber's face. "I am a descendant from a long line of knights; knights that seek to claim the Grail and share it with everyone in the world. Knights that seek the happiness of all of humanity and put that before their own well-being." Sure, Saber was fudging her story around, but honestly? Who didn'tstretch the truth a little when telling whimsical stories to children? Experience had taught her that when the truth a too difficult or just plain unsavory, then that was within reason to change things around just a bit in for the sake of storytelling.
"The Grail is what my mistress and I are after, and we have very strong reasons to believe that the Grail is located somewhere in this very city."
"Somewhere in here? Wow..." The notion that a holy relic of unimaginable power hidden within his very own hometown appealed to Shirou's imagination on a very visceral level. "Do you have any idea where it is?"
"In a cave somewhere, perhaps? Perhaps not? Who knows? There is only one way to find out, and that is to look - look and ensure that the forces of evildo not get their hands on it."
"F-forces of EVIL?" He sputtered, more out of excitment than genuine fear. Saber was pleased that her ad-libbed abridged history of the Holy Grail was riling up the boy this much. His childishly over-the-top reactions were very endearing, and she could tell that he was eating up all of this talk of adventure. "Are they wicked wizards with demon familiars that want to claim the cup for themselves so that they can take over the world and rule over an era of a thousand years old darkness under an iron fist? I bet they are, aren't they?"
Saber and Irisviel smiled more when faced with this boy's thrilling (and scarily accurate in some regards) claims about their "quest". This one would live an eventful life at the rate he was going.
"Our DARK foes might be greedy and cold, but as long as I have Saber to help me they don't stand a chance. Worry not, we'll win this one way or another."
Shirou mulled it over a little bit before continuing the conversation any further. "This is all true, right? Wizards and demons and aliens and vampires and robots, rights?" Not really - at least two-fifths of that were partly true enough - but close enough, at least in principle. "It's all true?"
"You are not entirely wrong, no." Irisviel confirmed as Saber nodded in acknowledgment.
"Why tell me this, then? I'm normal as can be."
"But do you not remember, Shirou? We made you a knight." The Servant patted Shirou's head some more as she reminded him of this fact. "M'lady did so herself, right Irisviel?"
"That is right, Shirou. By my word I made you as much of a valid knight as Saber right here. That was why we decided it was alright to tell you of our quest - we knew that we could trust you now that you were knighted."
Quests...
Mystery...
Adventure...
A modern day epic taking place right in Fuyuki City...
"That's so cool." He squeezed his eyes tightly as he imagined all the amazing things happening, right before he looked up into the emerald-eyes of the Servant, "You're so cool, Saber-san! I want to be as cool as you someday!"
"I'm sure that you will, Shirou."
"And Iri," Shirou turned to Irisviel as he wore a look of confident determination, "I promise by my knight's honor that I do something worthy of my duty - I will someday save a princess, too!"
"I'll hold you to your word then, Shirou-liebling."
But young Shirou realized that all things must indeed come to an end, even an event as whimsical and wonderfully awesome as this when his wristwatch began beeping loudly at him and he saw just how much time had passed.
"Uh-oh! I have to get home right now! It's been really fun, Saber-san, Iri-san, but I have to go." He picked up the soccer ball from the ground, ready to leave the park and return back to his carefree life. "But I'm really serious about all what I said, okay? I willbecome the best hero that I can be, so that we can all be happy! Count on it!"
The two women sat contentedly on the park bench, watching the young boy wave goodbye to them as he chased after the future with an enviable enthusiasm.
A/N: Then suddenly, FATE/ZERO HAPPENS!-!-!-!-!
...yeah.