"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Mordred as she lounged on the throne, gazing down at her bound father wearing a rather elaborate dress for some reason. "'Haven't the quality of a king', have I? Well, now I am king, and now you have nothing to say about it! Or do you?" she asked abruptly. "Do you have anything to say to me, now that I am king by my own hands? Well?"
Artoria took a deep breath then. "Mordred. My son."
Mordred blinked. "Yes?" she squeaked, honestly surprised that her father was speaking under these circumstances, addressing her like that. Could it be, could it truly be, that she was about to indicate her approval that Mordred didn't want or need but would nonetheless be sort of -
"You ... are a total smeghead."
Mordred's eyes snapped open to the sound of someone ringing the door buzzer of her suite and barely restrained the impulse to start shrieking outwardly. Even in my own freakin' dreams? she shrieked inwardly as she got up and shambled to the door.
"This had better be good," she said as the door slid open.
"Were you sleeping?" asked her Master. "I'm sorry. It's just that we're back -"
"Y'don't say."
"- and, well, some things happened this time that you should probably know about since you weren't watching in the control booth -"
"What happened?" asked Mordred, in a way that suggested profound disinterest.
"Welllll, uh, we ran into this new Caster and persuaded her to come with us, and ..." The Master trailed off, as if unsure how to continue.
"... lemme guess. It's genderbent Alter Shakespeare and now you need all hands on deck to stop those two from sucking each other's faces off," guessed Mordred.
"That would be disturbing, and I'm sure you would be helpful, but it's not, uh, well, it's -"
"Ahhh!" cried a female voice from not far away. "Really! My sweet Mordred is here too? My dear killer angel?"
"No," said Mordred, face gone pale.
"I'm afraid so, but try to see the -"
The door slammed shut. "No," could be heard on the other side.
"- good in the situation," concluded the Master.
"No," was repeated on the other side of the door, under the sound of furniture being piled up.
"Morrrdreeedddd! Mommy is here!" cried out the other voice.
It was then that the door on the other side of the hallway opened up and Artoria looked out with an expression on her face vaguely reminiscent of the one that had been there the last time Gawain had tried cooking his favorite dish. "Really?" she asked.
"She was kind of helpful and, well, I mean ... we took in Medb," the Master replied.
Artoria let out a sigh and went back into her room, closing the door firmly.
Some time later ...
"Now, really, Mordred, this is very juvenile of you. Actually barricading your door? We're from medieval epics, not seventies era comedy shows. I raised you better than this."
That, at least, got Mordred to lift her head from her hands and glare back at the pile of furniture separating herself from the door.
"Yes I did!" replied the obnoxiously clairvoyant person on the other side. "Open the door and we'll talk about the good old days, and how to bring them back, and how to bring about the final downfall of that wretched Arth- ah, I mean of course role-play about the final downfall of that wretched Arthur, not bring it about, I would never breach the truce of this place."
There came a grunt that Mordred vaguely recognized as characteristic of the Frankenstein Monster, who had doubtless been passing down the hallway on some other business. Mordred dropped her head back into her hands and wished a singularity would open up right then and there.
"What nosy creatures lurk in this place ... anyway, Mordred, open the door please. Please. Please please ple-"
Now there came a delicate cough.
"Why, Gawain!" cried Mordred's mother's voice. "They didn't tell me you were here, too."
"A regrettable omission. Mother," the delicate voice of the delicate cougher added as something of an afterthought. "Perhaps I could show you the rest of the installation."
"That would be wonderful! So nice that some of my children remember their manners. Tell me, blah blah blah blah blah blah," she continued as her voice grew fainter with each passing moment.
Mordred let out a sigh.
"I didn't know Gawain was your brother," marveled Astolfo, sitting beside her. "The two of you hardly ever even talk."
"Iesu Mawr!" Mordred shrieked, looking up fast enough to break her neck.
"Well, I just think that's strange, under the circumstances," they replied with a shrug.
"How," she asked through gritted teeth, "did you get in here?"
"Oh, easily. I used one of my Noble Phantasms to become very small, much as I did when I traveled among the frogs and rats and found that they were still at war as they had been in the days of Hercules, then made my way along the air ducts to here," Astolfo answered.
"I suppose I should ask why - no, that's a silly question, you did it because you wanted to do it." Mordred let her jaw ease a bit and slumped back a bit.
"That is my raison d'etre," they admitted. "So why don't you ever talk to your brother?"
"Because we don't have anything to talk about," Mordred at last replied, resigned to this conversation. "He's the ultimate loyalist, I'm the ultimate traitor. All right, I suppose Bedivere is the ultimate loyalist, but ... anyway. It doesn't matter, you wouldn't understand. I suppose you always got on wonderfully with all your ambivalently gendered siblings."
"Maybe. I don't know." Astolfo shrugged. "I don't have any memories of childhood or family. Hm. I wonder why. Anyhoo, maybe you're right, I wouldn't understand what it's like to have a chance, that might never come again, to actually talk to your parents, in a safe place, surrounded by people who care about you and won't let bad things happen to you, and maybe resolve some stuff." The knight of the garters shrugged once more.
Mordred stared at them.
"I'm just being mindful of the somewhat ambiguous favor you did me at one point, you know?"
"Be mindful somewhere else," Mordred said crossly.
"Okay. Just one more thing, though ... I'm pretty sure your brother still loves you, or he wouldn't have shown up to get your mother away from the door." On that note, Astolfo disappeared.
Some more time later ...
The crappy thing about being left alone with your thoughts is that, after those thoughts have been disturbed by notions introduced by a gender ambivalent do-gooder, you're alone with those notions, too. So it was that Mordred found herself standing in the hallway outside her room and outside a certain other individual's room, holding a hand up to the buzzer. Not pushing the buzzer. That was proving a little more than she could handle.
"All right," she muttered. "Maybe if I close my eyes and slump forward, my hand will hit the buzzer and ... ghg, no, I refuse to act like some fainting maiden! Push. Pusssssh!"
It was at that moment that the door Mordred was facing slid open and Artoria looked out curiously. "What are you doing?" she asked.
Mordred froze. "Ahhh ... I ... was ... tryingtoworkupthewilltoaskyoutocomehaveatalkwithmeandmymotheraboutallthecrapwewentthroughsosomesortofclosurecanbefound!" she burst out, then gasped, amazed at her own honesty.
Artoria stared at her. "... no, really, what are you doing?"
"Raaaaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhh!"
Faintly unsettled by Mordred verging on a class change to Berserker instead of Rider, like the last one she'd embarked upon, Artoria decided to change tactics. "All right, calm down. You were trying to ask me to have a talk with you and ... her. I see. Mordred ... you are aware that your mother is pure evil, I hope?"
"Yes, I do know what she's like. Probably -" better than you do, she bit back; now was not the time for that sort of competition. "But when else are we ever going to be able to sit down and, and talk like the civilized people you wanted us to be?"
"Probably never," Artoria admitted after a moment of consideration. "... are you sure you wouldn't rather wait for Mysterious Heroine X to deal with your mother in a fairly permanent manner?"
"No, I would not rather you put on that silly baseball hat and -"
"I would never wear a baseball hat," Artoria said piously. "You are confusing me with Mysterious Heroine X."
Would I have rebelled sooner or not at all if I'd known about this side of her? Mordred wondered wearily. "Whatever. I have never asked you for anything - shutupthatdoesntcount! - never asked you for anything, but I am asking for this. Please." And she lowered her head, exposing the back of her neck.
A long moment passed.
"Very well," Artoria said quietly.
In silence, the two Sabers proceeded toward Chaldea's cafeteria ...
... where, sitting surrounded by a gently cooing Medea, a winsomely smirking Medb and a speculatively gazing Jack the Ripper, they found Morgan le Fey with her veil off and a rather panicked expression on her face. "Help," she peeped.
And so Saber, Saber of the Red, and Caster of the Puce - for her Holy Grail War had been between fashion victims - sat down together to talk about what had happened in their past, which they agreed to treat as though it was a mutual past, even though the odds were fairly likely that none of them were from the same timeline. And what conclusions did they reach, after voices were raised, arguments answered, tears shed and consolations offered?
Frankly, they are none of your business.
What is perhaps your business is what happened afterwards.
Artoria slumped down in the cafeteria. "I don't know, I think being on good terms with Morgan is probably going to be worse than being her enemy," she mused out loud. "After we finally made peace, I could swear that she was flirting with me. My own sister. It's odd enough that it's another woman, but my own -"
A delicate cough came from beside her.
Artoria turned to look at the individual to whom she had been unwittingly speaking just now.
"No, no, don't let me stop you," said Ishtar. "Please, continue. I find your observations fascinating, don't you, Nameless?"
The red-garbed Archer on the other side of the table gave the appearance of wishing he were somewhere else.
"So, thanks," said Mordred, stiffly, without looking in his direction.
"You're welcome," said Gawain, without looking in her direction.
And they sat in silence until one of them was called away for yet another mission.