The first time she met the elegant lady in white, she was fidgeting with her hands.
She was nervous, Maiya noticed. Even if she did not realize it herself. Nevertheless, she swallowed her nerves and smiled – a lovely and welcoming smile - towards the woman in black.
"Nice to meet you, my name is Irisviel von Einzbern."
As Maiya shook hands with her, she could only notice how rough and calloused her own hands were in comparison. She is beautiful, Maiya thought, watching how Kiritsugu's eyes watched carefully at how she politely greeted the other back. How Kiritsugu's eyes lingered on the other lady's smile. How Irisviel von Einzbern seemed to shine brightly while she faded into the shadows.
She called her 'Madam'.
The second time they met, Madam was holding Kiritsugu's hand.
It was a simple wedding – nothing special or grand, yet it was the first time she had seen Kiritsugu smile so happily. It was the first time she had seen so much love and tenderness in his eyes.
As she gave her congratulations, Madam smiled and said, "I'm so happy you could make it, Maiya-san!"
It was the first time someone told her they wereglad of her presence.
The third time they met, Madam was lying in bed, and she had a baby in her arms.
They told her that the baby's name was 'Ilya'.
Maiya was not there when Ilya was conceived. She only managed to rush back a few days later.
As she stood there and Madam offered to let her hold little Ilya, Maiya froze.
She couldn't turn her eyes away from the baby.
Suddenly, the room seemed to close up on her. Her heartbeat resounded in her ears, and her vision started becoming hazy.
She blinked, wondering what was wrong with her, and a single sweat dripped down from her forehead. She opened her lips, but her throat was tied. She couldn't speak. There was a sinking feeling in her belly, where she suddenly felt was empty as a shell.
"Maiya-san?"
Her vision switched from the infant to her mother – and that image struck her as hard as a blow to her chest. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. She couldn't respond.
Her mind was envisaged with a previous event – one that was buried in the depths of her memories. One that involved a baby. A dead baby. Her dead baby.
Her vision fuzzed once again, and suddenly she was in a different place. It was the old makeshift shed of her army camp. It smelt like blood and pain. As she looked closer, she saw two- no, three people. There was a woman, and there was a girl holding a baby. The girl was cradling the baby in her arms, in the exact same way that Madam was cradling hers-
The girl looks familiar.
And then there was someone screaming in her ears. The girl was screaming. There were men, many men. They snatched the girl's baby away, shoved her down and stomped mercilessly on her belly. The girl screamed in pain, in anger, in desperation, and she cried as she begged over and over again, to return her baby to her, to let her baby live, to kill her instead, but they only laughed. Maiya closed her eyes. She didn't want to see this. She didn't want to think of this anymore, if she just close her eyes and ignore it, it'll go away. But it didn't. And all she could hear was the girl wailing, screaming, and begging, and as much as she tried to shut it all out, she still couldn't run away when they killed her child right before her eyes; and she watched the girl kneeling down in despair as she crawled towards the corpse of a human being who was breathing seconds ago…
"Maiya-san, are you okay?"
As Maiya blinked once again, Madam's concerned eyes met her own. There was no more screaming. All the blood was gone. She was back in the Einzbern mansion, where everything was white and everything was quiet. Maiya took a deep breath and swallowed, keeping her eyes on the floor as she unclenched her fists she didn't know she was clenching.
"I'm… not good with children." She managed, forcing down the urge to throw up. With one last reassuring nod that she was not feeling uncomfortable, she excused herself to the hallway, where she supported herself against the wall with one hand and held her face in the other.
Deep breaths. She commanded herself. It was only an illusion. It was only a-
She couldn't hold it in anymore. After she emptied her bowels, she tasted a sourish, acidic aftertaste in her mouth.
This was not supposed to happen. She wasn't supposed to feel. She was a machine. She was a tool. Tools do not have feelings.
She brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them to stop herself from shaking, thinking that she had behaved inappropriately in Madam's room moments ago, that she hadn't congratulated Madam yet, that she should do something to compensate for her discourtesy just now-
But she couldn't help but wonder-
While Madam deserved all the love she received;
Was this a cruel way of fate showing her how the lives of two people can differ so greatly?