Disclaimer: Fate/Zero isn't mine, yada yada.
A/N: Plotless fluff! Because who doesn't want to write an entire story about Saber's suit? It's Saber's suit. I mean, I wrote an entire story about her motorcycle, so...
I don't even know. Review, if you like? It'd be awesome if you did!
Suit Up
When Irisviel's excited voice reached her ears, Saber dragged her gaze away from its anchor—somewhere out in the wintry forest surrounding the Einzbern castle, some speck of white amongst all the other specks of white, and she was surprised, somewhat, at how sharp the cold was here. Being a Servant meant that the weather affected her less than it might a normal flesh-and-blood human, but she knew instinctively that it had never been this cold in her beloved Britain. This was a strange, foreign frost, the kind that could cut to the bone, but there were many strange and foreign things in this age, and the weather hardly qualified as a concern.
So she turned her head to look at her Master's wife, as the cheerful homunculus was one of the strangest, most foreign things she had ever encountered in any world or time. Not just in the shocking appearance—skin as pale as death, eyes as red as blood, and then there was the fact that somehow Irisviel managed to take such unappealing pieces and make them into a bewilderingly beautiful whole—but her childlike exuberance and innocence never ceased to stagger the battle-hardened king of knights.
Saber had long ago abandoned her childhood and all the exuberance and innocence it might have once contained, trading them in for duty and honor and the unyielding strength she needed to fight every ruthless battle and walk every arduous road and wake up every lonely morning. Before, in Camelot, she would have borne no patience for someone's naïveté, would never have indulged someone's whimsy, but here, in this different castle…
Here, she found herself doing exactly that with distressing frequency, and that troubled Saber, but not as much as the plain fact that an artificial construction parroted humanity far better than she herself did. Where was her warmth, her joy?
She did not know.
"What is it, Irisviel?" Saber asked, finally acknowledging the homunculus' presence.
"It's here, it's here, it's here!" Irisviel chirped again, an eager grin lighting up her entire face, and she thrust out her hands and the parcel they carried.
The Servant politely looked at the package, plainly wrapped in brown paper, but did not move to take it. "What's here?"
Irisviel huffed and extended her arms, rather more pointedly this time, so that Saber had to accept her offering. "Your clothes, of course," she replied, amending swiftly, "Or should I say, your new clothes. Your modern-day clothes. The ones you'll wear out in the world when we depart for Fuyuki! Aren't you excited?"
Saber turned the parcel over in her hands, as if she thought an exterior examination would yield any information about the contents, and a slight grimace played across her lips. She recalled how, several days prior, Irisviel had summoned an elderly tailor to take the Servant's measurements, so she had been expecting something to come from that event, but it only seemed to drive home her shortcomings. "I am sorry, Irisviel."
The homunculus' smile froze for an uncomprehending instant before it faded into a puzzled frown; if Saber had been looking, she might have felt a measure of chagrin at causing such a thing, but she was too preoccupied with staring at the package in her hands to notice the other woman's expression. "I—what? You're apologizing? Whatever for?"
"I am unable to take spirit form, and this has caused you great inconvenience," Saber explained. "You are required to disguise me, and—"
"Oh, Saber, it's no trouble!" Irisviel interrupted with a bright bubble of laughter. "It was a great deal of fun, actually. I really liked picking out clothes for you, so don't you dare feel sorry! If anything, I should be thanking you; this has been most diverting. Not as much fun as driving," she added conscientiously, "but fun nevertheless."
The Servant blinked. "Oh." A pause, and then: "You're welcome?"
Stifling a giggle, she clasped her hands together. "Well? Try it on! I want to see how dashing you look."
Saber blinked again, taken aback, and she lowered her eyes away from Irisviel's crimson ones to regard the package once more. "Here?" she queried, suddenly feeling uncomfortable at the notion of undressing, even though she knew that, as a Servant, her entire body was nothing more than sword and shield for her Master. Was this because of the compliment? "Now?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, I'm being terribly rude," the homunculus blurted, and she turned away in a swirl of long, snowy skirts. "There, that's better. I'll just look at the wall. It's a rather nice wall. Let me know if you need help with anything, okay?"
Saber failed to respond, instead setting the parcel on a nearby table and peeling back the crinkling brown paper and revealing its assortment of black-dyed contents. Undressing was but the work of a moment for the Servant; as her blue battle-dress had been magically manifested along with her body when she'd been summoned, it could be dispelled with ease. She set about pulling on the various articles, not encountering any difficulty until she tried fastening what appeared to be a sash, but it seemed rather short, not to mention ill-equipped to support any sort of blade. She frowned at it for a second more before she gave up. "Irisviel, I do not believe this sash is sufficient. Is it meant to be ornamental rather than practical?"
"Sash? What sash?" the homunculus wondered, and as she faced the Servant once again, she gave Saber a reflexive once-over and burst out laughing. "Oh, dear, what have you done?"
Heat rising in her cheeks, the king of knights looked down at herself in a hopeless yet defensive sort of way. "What is wrong? Is this not how these garments are meant to be worn?"
Sensing that she might have upset the blond woman, Irisviel quelled her chuckles to a faint grin. "I was just surprised, that's all. I didn't think that there would be any room for misinterpretation, but I suppose this outfit is quite involved, even for someone from this age."
Saber sighed. "It is disgraceful to be thwarted by a set of clothes," she muttered, still embarrassed.
Irisviel waved her concerns away. "Fashion makes fools of us all," she remarked sagely, and she closed the distance between them; Saber realized, for the first time, that they were the same height, and she wondered if that contributed to Kiritsugu's lackluster response—if she were the same size as his wife, he probably didn't consider her a force to be reckoned with, which was nonsensical on its face, as Irisviel herself was quite the force to be reckoned with. But it was just another thing she'd have to prove to her strange Master before the end.
She drifted back to the present when Irisviel began unfastening the misplaced sash. "I'll help you," the Einzbern was saying. "You got it mostly right, except that this a tie, not a sash. It's supposed to go around your neck."
"My neck?" Saber repeated, and she tilted her chin down, as if she desired to protect her throat. "I trust that its purpose is still ornamental? I shudder to think what practical reasons it would have; it does bear a striking resemblance to the hangman's noose."
Irisviel giggled. "So macabre, Saber! No one's going to throttle you with your own necktie. Neckties are…I think they're supposed to be like decorative scarves. Nothing sinister, I assure you."
"Very well," the knight permitted, mollified. "Wait, what're you doing?" she exclaimed in the next instant as Irisviel unbuckled her belt in a businesslike fashion.
"This is a shirt, not a tunic," the homunculus corrected without missing a beat. "You're not supposed to belt it. The belt, in fact, is supposed to go through these loops in the tops of your trousers, and you're supposed to tuck the tails of the shirt into the trousers as well. It'll be easier if you unzip the trousers before trying to tuck—"
"I can do that," Saber quickly interrupted, sliding back a step and reclaiming safe distance. She stuffed the long tails down, smoothing out the resulting bunching folds before she buttoned the trousers shut again, but her intervening space was once more invaded as Irisviel took it upon herself to thread the belt into the loops. The flustered Servant had no choice but to stand there stiffly as her Master's wife reached around her slender form to complete the belt's circuit.
"There," Irisviel declared, giving a firm nod with her hands on her hips. "That's more like it! And even without the tie and jacket, you're already dashing. I did a fine job picking this out, if I do say so myself!"
Saber didn't trust her voice to speak, so she wordlessly shrugged into the vest, instead.
"Tie time!" the other woman reminded her, and she reached out and turned up Saber's collar, draping the silk ornament in place a moment later. But Saber's gaze was falling aside, fixing on the waiting jacket, and a crease appeared in her brow as recognition finally arrived.
"Wait," she said softly, and Irisviel paused obediently while the Servant tried to find the appropriate way to articulate her confusion. "You…are dressing me like Kiritsugu? Why?"
"What? Am I?" the homunculus replied in honest wonder, and a grin flickered across her lips as she, too, recognized the glaring similarities. "Oh, goodness, I am. Isn't that silly? I didn't even mean to. I guess I see him dressed like that all the time, so it must've sunk in subconsciously or something. But I didn't mean to make you two a matching pair, I swear! I just wanted you to be warm and comfortable, and I imagined you would be used to suits of armor, so perhaps a suit of cloth would be the most familiar outfit this age had to offer. The dark color is just so we'll contrast nicely," she added with a playful wink. "You have to plan ahead like that so you'll best complement your partner."
But Saber was not so easily distracted—at least, not by Irisviel's words. Irisviel's hands, still resting on Saber's collar with one end of the tie grasped loosely in each, were a different story entirely; the Servant was hyperaware of their slight weight and faint heat, as if she had never been touched by another person in her entire life.
Except that was mostly true. As king, she had stood alone, distant, forever separated from her people and her knights by an uncrossable moat and an unbreachable wall. And as a king who was not supposed to be a girl, she had never dared let someone get close enough to find out.
Irisviel, though, hovered nearby, and Saber could not find it within herself to push the other woman away.
There was a warmth here that she had not known she craved.
A question, however, lingered in her throat, and she swallowed to ease the rasp before she asked, "You are not trying to make a point, are you? Because regardless of how we are dressed, Kiritsugu and I will never have anything in common."
Delicate brows lifting, Irisviel regarded the Servant without offense or malice, just curiosity. "Oh? I thought you two had a great deal in common."
Fire flashed in Saber's emerald eyes, and her hands unconsciously rolled into fists. "I know he is my Master, and I have sworn my allegiance to him for this war's duration, but…he has no honor! He operates in a manner that is both brutal and underhanded, and I would not, under any other circumstances, have permitted my knighthood to be stained by association with his barbaric tactics!"
Irisviel held her gaze for a long moment, and then slowly, she lowered it, toying needlessly with the still-loose tie. "I am aware of what he has done. To some extent, I am aware of what he is going to do. Before he summoned you, he was concerned that he would have nothing in common with anyone noble enough to belong to the Saber class, especially the king of knights himself—or herself, as it happens. But neither of you seem to realize that your end goals are the same: you want to save people. That is the real reason you responded to his summons. It was not Avalon; it was your shared wish."
Saber's mouth remained a hard, firm line, but she bowed her head slightly, indicating that, while she might not have been persuaded to agreement, she had no desire to continue arguing the matter.
Irisviel inhaled a buoying breath, and her attention refocused on the silk length draped around the knight's neck. "We'd best finish up. We don't have all the time in the world—we have to be getting to Fuyuki sooner or later. I…hm."
The Servant's eyes almost flickered up, but they never made contact with the other woman's. "What is it?"
"Oh, I was just thinking that it would make more sense for me to teach you how to tie it, rather than just tie it for you, and then that made me think that I always tie Kiritsugu's for him," Irisviel related with a small shrug.
Saber absorbed that information. "I should think that Kiritsugu would know how by now, if it is such a staple of his wardrobe."
"He knows how," the homunculus confirmed, "but I like helping him out. It's a very little thing, I know, but there's something…intimate about it that I enjoy. Oh, I don't know," she said, exhaling a nervous laugh. "I'm rambling. I'm sorry. It just occurred to me that once we head to Fuyuki, we'll be separated the vast majority of the time. For all I know, I may never tie his tie again. The Grail might take me first."
Saber's brow pinched as she saw the tears sparkle in Irisviel's crimson eyes, and all she could focus on was the way her fingers were trembling as they clutched the loose ends of the tie. She was unaccustomed to offering comfort, but something in Irisviel's fragile sorrow made her want to find out how. At length, she lifted her own hands and wrapped uncertain, calloused fingers around the other woman's wrists in a hesitant offering of strength.
"Well," she said softly, "I refuse to learn, so you will be forced to tie mine daily."
Irisviel blinked several times, her long lashes sending several droplets trailing free down her ivory cheeks, but the tears' progress was disrupted by the growing sliver of her smile. "If I must," she conceded with a shade of her usual humor.
The Servant offered the slightest shrug. "You must," she insisted calmly.
Her smile broadened further before it faded into something small and true. "Your wish is my command, king of knights," she remarked in a lilting, lighthearted tone, and her confident, nimble fingers quickly moved through the complex motions necessary to fasten Saber's necktie into a proper Windsor knot.
Saber's lips quirked as well. "Your wish is my command?" she echoed. "I think you're forgetting who the Servant is here, Irisviel."
The Einzbern glanced up from her task. "Am I?" she posed. "Which of us will turn into the Holy Grail? That was perhaps the most accurate usage of that statement in its history, for your wish will one day be my command, and I will be overjoyed to grant it for you."
Saber nodded in acknowledgment. On that day, Britain would be saved, and she could finally rest in peace. But something unfamiliar twisted in the depths of her sealed heart, and while she could not yet put words to the discomfiting sensation, she would find them in time, and they would startle her:
She longed to save her country, but she did not know if she were willing to sacrifice Irisviel to achieve such an end.
For now, though, it remained a twinge in her chest.
"All done!" Irisviel sang, and she clapped her hands together as she stepped back. "Just button your vest and put on your jacket, and you'll be the most well-dressed Servant the Grail War has ever seen!"
Saber smiled at the inherent absurdity of that declaration. "If only that would have an effect on the outcome," she deadpanned even as she finished dressing as directed.
Irisviel couldn't seem to resist the temptation to straighten, as she smoothed out the shoulders of Saber's jacket and fussed with the set of her tie, and she couldn't resist the temptation to laugh, either. "You never know, Saber—it might make all the difference in the end!"
The Servant let that illusion stand; she didn't have the heart to impress the grim truth on Irisviel, and part of her wanted to believe it, too—but not about the suit. She didn't believe the suit itself would make a lick of difference, but she wanted to believe that, perhaps, little moments like this one…
Perhaps those had the power to change the world.