Rice Pudding
(This dessert starts some time before Merlin dissappeared and ends some time after the New Year).
It was late evening already as Merlin walked home from work, humming a catchy tune to himself.
Waving at one of Telma's kids, he passed the street.
She sighed and rolled her eyes, but reciprocated the gesture, smiling good-naturedly at him.
There was a hiss to his left, and Merlin blinked.
"Louise…? No, a white cat?"
He glanced at the hissing furball and smiled. "Well hello there, little one!"
0:0:0:0
He was leaving for his shift, bidding good-bye to his little mother, smiling to himself. These last few days were full of sunshine and teasing and gleefully grinning at Artoria every possible seconds to see her reaction of dread.
There was a meow to his side, and Merlin bent down to scratch the visiting cat behind it's ear.
It was a youngling still, barely separated from its mother, but a feitsy little thing nonetheless.
And as Merlin walked away from the cat - no, the kitten, finger cradled in his other hand, he mused that it was moody as well.
0:0:0:0
A hiss alerted Merlin of his visitor, and he rolled his eyes as Telma raised an eyebrow, holding his drink in her hand.
"A little friend of yours, hun?"
Merlin shrugged as the kitten walked up to Louise, the older cat sloshing her tail around in boredom. The kitten was trying to catch it, ignoring Merlin all together.
"More of a nuisance, really."
0:0:0:0
He was skipping out of his door, dressed in skin-tight clothes that revealed more than they covered, and a jacket against the evening chill.
The kitten gave an annoyed huff as Merlin bent down to pet it, and the former Magus sighed in annoyance. "Fine, have it your way."
The white beast of fluff puffed up, and Merlin had the feeling it was even more cranky than normal.
"What? A little work on the side never hurt anyone."
0:0:0:0
The kitten had managed to find its way into his apartment, and was making itself at home on his bed.
Merlin looked miffed. He's had a very long day, thank you very much, so he wanted sleep.
"Could you please-"
It hissed.
"I mean, get off my-"
Another angry yowl.
"That's still my—" the kitten curled up demonstratively on the pillow it occupied, seemingly having fallen asleep. "—bed."
He sighed.
0:0:0:0
When he came home the next day, the house was empty. He looked around everywhere, but neither his little mother nor the annoying kitten could be found.
Merlin shrugged, happy to have the house for himself for once.
0:0:0:0
A week later, the kitten came stumbling up his steps, and Merlin looked at it in alarm, a frazzled look on his face as he saw the condition of the little demon.
It screeched and yowled at him, hissing and meowing and walked back down the steps, turning around and waiting, tail thumping the ground.
0:0:0:0
"You need some kind of distraction."
Gwen was looking at him, Artoria next to her.
He raised his eyebrows silently. "I have plenty of hobbies-"
"That does not count." Artoria rolled her eyes at him, but they softened. "We are worried, Merlin."
0:0:0:0
He was lying on his bed, the little monster sitting on the windowsill, sleeping.
"A hobby or distraction or something…" He had hobbies, dammit! Though, looking over at his collection of unfinished stuff lying around the small room, he had to admit that it has been some time since he last tinkered around with something.
"What to do…?"
There wasn't really much Merlin could do. He sighed. "A hobby…"
0:0:0:0
"I swear, I'm going to skin you alive, little beast!"
The demonspawn had snatched his cookie!
"Mreow!" It hissed at him and clawed at his outstretched hand. Merlin retracted it, not willing to have another scar by the thing, but the second he did so, it gobbled the piece up.
"…" Merlin glared at it.
0:0:0:0
Merlin woke up.
It was dark.
And soft. On his eyes.
Feeling in the dark, he touched something that vaguely felt like fur. "Oh come on…" Her tried lifting up the sleeping kitten (it had all but invaded his home, because it seemed to have taken a liking to his little mother) but it protested, and Merlin vaguely felt it clawing at his face.
Well, it seemed that he'd be sleeping in today.
0:0:0:0
The personification of evil was currently playing with some newspaper or something like that, and Merlin watched it, annoyed. He was trying to come up with some sort of long-term hobby, but it wasn't as easy as he'd thought.
The magazine rustled as another page was ripped out of its spine, the cat having gone through half of it already.
Merlin has had enough. Grabbing the other end of the magazine, he shouted.
"That's it! You completely took over my room! My mother! My bed! You little—"
At that exact moment, the magazine ripped apart, and Merlin was left with the lower half of an ad for something, the cat hissing at him and shuffling into the corner.
He glanced at the page, dumbfounded. "… well…"
He was about to toss it away when something caught his attention. "An advertisement for an online blog?"
(Here it had to be said that Merlin was mainly fascinated by the bright colors used for the ad, and the stylized human in the corner of the page, smiling at him and grinning.)
He could work with that.
Merlin's face split into a smile. "Look at that! You are useful, after all!"
The cat hissed again.
0:0:0:0
A week later, Merlin was grinning while he held up the little white demonspawn (away from anything remotely sliceable and scratchable) and Artoria stared at him in confusion and a hint of exasperation.
"…what is this?"
"A cat!"
It meowed indignantly.
The King rolled her eyes. "I can see that. What is it doing near a kitchen?"
"Well, I was thinking about what you said, about the whole finding a hobby, and the little monster here gave me the idea!"
He pointed the frazzled cat at her, demonstratively, and Artoria had the sudden feeling that it would be a very, very good idea to get it out of the cafe.
Still, she was glad that it seemed that Merlin had found himself some sort of distraction from what happened, because that had been the plan all along (even if she was surprised that he'd even kept it in mind for over one month; usually he'd have had cycled through at least ten different ones. It was nice when he listened).
"And what, pray tell, is it?"
His look turned ecstatic as he answered, "an online blog!"
Limoncello Cake
After the initial surprise of Agravain knowing …nothing changed, actually. The next three days passed in everyday silence, for once a lull in cases that required the twins or Jack's connections, so the three were in the detective office, cleaning.
"Heaven knows neither Ana nor Mackenzie do it," Henry grumbled.
"I actually wondered," Jack was dusting, "does Agravain know who we are, or does he simply know that we are like him?"
Ed was throwing out the trash. "I think he knows you— but for us?" He shrugged.
Then, the door opened.
Agravain blinked and raised an eyebrow, scowl carefully neutral. "…right."
The children looked at him, waiting.
"How fast can you get those friends of yours together?"
All eyes turned to Jack. "Uh, Hans is probably free, and I can call Alice's mother and ask if she can come over?"
Agravain nodded, satisfied. "Good — we are going into the cafe, to sort this all out."
0:0:0:0
One and a half hours later, the two girls had a hot chocolate and the boys had tea. Agravain was sitting next to them, sipping his own coffee, and Palomedes was over at the counter, talking to Tristan.
They were waiting for the last guests to leave — a nice couple that was talking with Artoria about something or the other fashion.
(Jack and Alice were discreetly listening in as the brown haired woman, Lena, admitted that she'd like the address of the shop that sold such nice suits for women, and her girlfriend, Emily agreed.)
Alice sipped at her chocolate. "How did you manage to get everyone here at this hour?"
As far as she understood, some were still in school, while others worked in a theater.
"We didn't." Agravain watched the two women leave with a wave, and narrowed his eyes at them disdainfully. "It's almost impossible for everyone to meet as long as it isn't a holiday. Ector, Dagonet and Leodegrance with Gaheris and Gareth are working, Merlin is off doing whatever he does when not working here and Bors had to go home because he's having a class test tomorrow morning."
He huffed, and Alice nodded in understanding. School was a chore, sometimes. She glanced over to Jack and Hans in envy, because they didn't need to go to school, the orphanage not being able to pay for tertiary education. Though, now that Jack was adopted…
The door was locked with a jingle, the female King Arthur sighing.
Catching Alice's look, she winked playfully, and the girl grinned.
0:0:0:0
Five minutes later, almost everyone was seated next to the 'kids'.
Kids relatively, because Mordred and the Grail Trio also technically counted as kids, which no-one in the room acknowledged.
"Gawain's coming in a minute."
They nodded.
Well, first things first. "How did you find out who we are?" The question was directed at Agravain, from Hans.
He raised an eyebrow. "I'm not a detective for nothing." It wasn't elaborated on, but Edward snickered and Henry smiled slightly.
Percival grinned. "So, I guess you also know who we are?"
Henry smiled and nodded, dipping his head into Mordred's direction. "We read the book and did some investigation. And I kind of… recognized her."
Edward butted in before the former Knight of Treachery could ask. "You mean I did, and you had a feeling."
Henry rolled his eyes.
"Um," Alice spoke, drawing the attention of everyone and interrupting Mordred's question again, "did you find out who we are? Well, I guess you know who Jackie is."
Kay raised his eyebrows. "Good question. Agravain?"
"No wait— this has to do with your ridiculous nickname for our group, right?" Hans was miffed with it.
Palomedes simply grinned, and somewhere in the back, Mordred was grumbling. Agravain shrugged. "I'd guessed my kids as Watson and Moriarty respectively, but later threw it."
Edward burst out laughing. "Wait, you gave us those monikers because of that?!"
Henry rolled his eye at the antics of his twin. "Well, I certainly knew Mr. Holmes and worked together with him for some time, but-"
"How in the world do you know me?!" Mordred blurted it out and flushed uncharacteristically as Artoria glared at her.
This had the unwanted effect of making Henry blush faintly, to Alice's amusement. He stammered slightly, "I think we were together in some sort of Grail War? I don't really know."
"Oh. Yeah I guess — no wait, it doesn't make sense! I only was in one War and… uh,"
The air chilled.
Very slowly, everyone present in the room turned to the smiling King Arthur.
It wasn't a nice smile.
Mordred gulped.
"What for a Grail War, Mordred...?"
"Uh, a fourteen way one?"
Before Artoria could strangle her, however, Gawain came strolling in. "Sorry that it took so long, Your Majesty, the freezer didn't want towhatisNurseryRhymedoing here?"
Alice looked miffed. "It's Alice you big dog!"
Hans grinned. "You mean big, mindless dog."
Gawain glanced into his direction, ticked off. "Servant Caster-!"
"Gawain." The King's voice was deceptively sweet, and Gawain shuddered.
"…yes?"
"Could either you or Mordred please explain to me how you recognize them- as Servants no less, and especially when you were involved in a Holy Grail War!?
And why you choose to keep it from me?"
At that second, both siblings felt strangely united in their common goal of survival.
I'm halfway done with my exams and there's a lull, so I thought I'd give me (and you) a present for surviving it xD
These are more filler-y than normal, especially the first, but they're needed.
And say hello to Merlin and Cat tales, based off of stories of my friends and their cats. Little bastards, but we love 'em.
And Gawain, meet Hans and Alice! I have no idea if they actually ever met in the game, I'm assuming they did, for comedic effects. He's not too fond of Alice, if you haven't noticed.
And the Thing that is going on with Henry/Edward will be explained at a later date. Promise
No reveal for the Mystery Woman yet, that's still some chapters away. Well, four, if my math is right, so there's that.
On another note, I can't wait for Grand Order to come out in English, because then I can finally understand what the hell is going on without needing to rely on translations xD
And I eagerly await Fate/Extella for Switch!
And onto the Reviews:
GhostXavier: No problem, considering I'm even worse, what with me wanting to review Fragments. For some months now, oops? I'll eventually get around to it, in two weeks once I have enough time xD
Jep, it was a good in-between for the 'official' translation and the nicer one. And simply wait and see ;) Jack is simply too precious to not give a happy ending , it simply felt right (and I'm having way too much fun writing those lines than should be necessary)
Delca: ;)
Thanks a lot, and I hope yours went well!
hyperomegasonic26: ... I'm leaving out the part where you guessed Christine's identity, like always, but you practically wrote a demand for how you'd imagine a meeting to go between Artoria and the hypothetical Morgan, and I'm not... too sure how to take it? Because quite honestly, I don't know if it was a suggestion or something more like a demand. And it's a no, by the way.
I. Bella'snowrider: Ooh, I wish you good luck! :D
And... I didn't follow the Event (didn't even know there was one, honestly). I'm not much of a fan of these Kinds of phone games, so I didn't even try xD I'll download the English Version solely for the Story (and the Sabers).
And Servants from other countries are planned as cameos, yes!
Vhosek: They did indeed make up finally, and I'm as glad as you are! :D
Isame Kuroda: Yep! And I know what you mean, believe me ;3
Hmm... I hadn't thought about that, to be honest. Which is kind of stupid, if I already separated Ed and Henry, yeah. Problem solved!
017Bluefield: No, it doesn't, don't worry. They're good again!
Well... some where rather shocked because the Awaking was so jarring, but most felt a strange dispatched sense - like knowing airplanes exist and knowing that they fly, but the first time you see one and sit in one, it's a little intimidating. Merlin was one of the worse ones, while Percival was all 'huh, that happened'.
That's it for now,
Happy Baking Everyone!