Chapter 1: The Next Steps
"Yeah—it really is just like you," Shirou says to himself as he squints into the sunrise, looking straight through the void Saber had left in the world. Despite their victory, he feels more pain in his heart than when it was run through by Lancer's spear. He swears to himself that he'll never forget her, the girl who managed to become the love of his life in a mere few weeks.
But he feels no regret. Thinking about her is painful, sure, but painful memories are nothing new to him; at least he has good times to look back on with her. Even so, for the first time he can remember he has a truly selfish wish: he wants to see her again. Their last days together may have been everything he hoped for, and they may have told each other everything they needed to, but it just isn't enough. He doesn't regret a thing about their time together, but he'd do anything for it to continue, to be able to live alongside her once again.
After aimlessly staring off into the horizon for some time, reminiscing on everything they'd done together over the past two weeks, he suddenly slaps himself in the face.
"What the hell am I doing just standing around! Saber's gone. I can't… I can't do anything for her anymore—not right now, at least. I can't help her, but I can help Illya and Tohsaka," he scolds himself. With her priorities realigned, he turns away from the horizon and looks towards the future, setting aside his memories to return to once he's certain Illya and Rin will be alright.
As he lifts Illya into his arms with a grunt, he's too exhausted from his battle to feel the eyes watching his movements.
Artoria quickly comes to her senses when she reawakens, and once she's stretched out her limbs she immediately gets to work. First things first: hygiene. She pulls a set of her looted clothes and a large cloth to use as a towel from her bundle of supplies and sets off for the river. Upon her arrival she kneels down on the bank, sets her things at her side, and intermittently takes sips of and splashes her face with water.
When she's gotten her fill, she carefully scans her surroundings. There's no sign of anyone at all in the area, so she sheds her clothing and sets it on the riverbank. Completely nude, she steps into—or rather, onto—the flowing water. Thanks to the Lady of the Lake's blessing she's been able to walk on water for ages, which meant that she never had a need to learn how to swim. Most of the time that had proved to be a boon but now, in a situation where she's unsure of the water's depth, she's out of her element. Surely it won't be too deep just a foot away from the shore, right?
Once she's taken a few deep breaths to calm her nerves, she focuses on allowing the blessing to temporarily disperse and let her sink into the water. She holds her breath without realizing it as she sinks, and when she feels her feet touch the riverbed long before her head comes close to submerging she lets out a long sigh of relief.
But with the worry gone from her mind, there's nothing distracting her from other matters—namely, that the water is absolutely freezing.
"I s-suppose I had gotten used to the warmth of Shirou's baths. I s-should have anticipated this chill with winter on the horizon," she chatters, hugging herself for warmth. She'd rather not stay in the cold for any longer than she needs to, so she gets to work on cleaning herself to the best of her ability. In the absence of any form of soap she scrubs her body with her bare hands, just wanting to wipe away the dried blood and sweat on her body in the wake of Camlann if nothing else.
With her body taken care of, she turns her attention to her hair. She undoes the now messy bun and submerges her head below the water to wet her hair and runs her hands through it, once again doing her best without any actual hygiene products. Soap and shampoo would certainly come in handy right now, as would a way for her to warm the water, but mere cold water is still better than nothing.
When she's done the best she can, she pops her head back above the surface and brushes her hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ears. She scans her surroundings once again as she does so; it's unlikely that someone would have approached in the short period she spent bathing, but she'd rather not be caught off guard in the event someone did. She's still alone—it's a relief, but the nearest village is a sizable distance east of the battlefield so it's not a surprise.
Climbing back out of the river, she dries herself off with the "towel" she'd brought with her and puts on the fresh change of clothes. As for her hair… Well, she doesn't really need to put it in a bun anymore. If she enters combat at this point then something's gone horribly wrong, and she doesn't need to keep up appearances for court either; a simple ponytail will do fine.
Her body is clean so she shifts her attention to her clothes, kneeling back over the river and beginning to scrub the cloth. She soon realizes that cleaning them is a lost cause; the blood has had weeks to soak in and dry, leaving them stained in a patchy red. But even without that they're caked in dirt which doesn't want to come off without any form of cleaning supplies, not to mention the large tear created by Mordred's final attack. They're not so far gone as to discard them, but attempting to clean them is a waste of time.
She returns to her camp with her clothes in hand and begins work on getting them dry. She ties some of the rope she'd gathered from the battlefield between two trees and drapes her former outfit over it in a position where it should be hit by the afternoon sun.
Now, it's time to eat—though now that she thinks about it, she feels almost no hunger at all. She'd eaten nothing substantial yesterday and nothing at all for weeks before that, and yet she feels as though she'd eaten a full meal just an hour ago. It can't be purely psychological at this point; if it were, surely she'd have noticed some kind of symptom of starvation by now. But even so, what could explain it?
After considering it for a while, everything she considers leads to one answer: Avalon. In the past it hadn't been capable of something like this—but in the past, it had been in a physical form. With her wounds fully healed and Avalon directly integrated into her body, perhaps its residual power is aiding in her survival by directly manipulating her metabolism in some manner? Even so, she shouldn't push her luck. Until she manages to get a better grasp about what exactly is going on with her body and test her limits, she should still try to eat at least one meal a day.
And so she sets out to forage for food once again, bringing cloth to use as a small pouch to carry her findings in so that she doesn't have to eat as she goes along. She eventually returns to camp with her collection in the early afternoon and sits down to eat a portion of it.
Next on the to-do list: preparing for the less immediate future. Staying in the forest long-term isn't an option. Winter approaches, and for at least some of the season conditions are likely to be too harsh to survive—especially considering the last few winters have been particularly harsh. Of course, if its abilities have changed Avalon may now be capable of warding off frostbite, but that's not exactly a risk she'd like to take. No, her survival isn't something to play games with; she'll simply have to find shelter elsewhere. If there was more time remaining she'd attempt to seek out some form of natural shelter, but if she doesn't manage to find something relatively quickly she'd be in an extremely poor spot.
The village on the road to the east, in the direction of the camp her army had used before the final battle, is probably her best bet. Scoping it out ahead of time would probably be for the best, but that can wait a few more days for her to get situated at her camp. Besides, she'll face another issue when she goes to the village—explaining who she is, why she's there, where she'd come from. Telling the full truth is obviously completely out of the question; King Arthur is known to have died at Camlann, and if it was known that "he" survived the future would surely wildly diverge from the path she needs it to take. A partial truth, such as her being a girl traveling to meet her lover, sounds good on the surface, but that has issues as well. It'd be strange for a woman who appears to be in her teens to be traveling across the country completely unaccompanied, and she'd surely draw too much attention.
Perhaps she could pose as a wandering mercenary? Fighting is one of the things she's best at after all, and there's sure to be at least some level of chaos thanks to her "death" leaving a power vacuum. But that still doesn't solve the issue of her apparent youth, and if she was hired for any kind of significant job she'd likely have a sizable impact on the distant future—killing even a single person is sure to have repercussions after fifteen centuries. Then again, her apparent youth will be an issue regardless of what explanation she eventually decides on, not to mention her lack of aging. Of course, she could always give up Avalon and return to being mortal; if she were to do that, then she'd begin to age again. The only problem with that is it would completely destroy any chance at her reaching her goal.
If only winter weren't a concern; if she only had to worry about remaining undetected, then she could simply retrieve Carnwennan from her former army camp. Hardly anyone had known about the dagger—it was ill-suited to her role as king, so she rarely used it and avoided letting most of her knights, even among the Round Table, know about it. But what she needs now is to appear ordinary, not the ability to easily sneak around; it would be of little use in that area.
Whatever explanation she comes up with, she needs to be sure it wouldn't require forging strong connections with others or staying in one place for extended periods.
"I had never expected the thought of being alone to be so painful," she murmurs. "I should be used to having to hide my true nature by now." Just a few months ago something like this wouldn't have fazed her, but after finally finding someone who saw through her facade returning to her old ways is an even heavier burden than it had been originally. Even so, those restrictions will be helpful to narrow down options for her story; she basically needs something that would allow her to pick up and leave at a moment's notice.
After brainstorming for a while longer, she eventually settles upon an idea: she could pose as a wandering hunter. It's not a difficult job to perform so she'd be unlikely to change the future, it would naturally allow her to keep moving without ever settling down, and selling meat would allow her to make the money she'd need to afford a stay at an inn. As much as the idea is unappealing now, posing as a man once again would also get around some of the issue of her appearance; a teenaged boy traveling alone is still likely to be seen as strange, but certainly less so than a teenaged girl doing the same.
With the seeds of her story planted, she looks to the horizon to see the sun beginning to set once again. She checks on the clothing she'd put on the clothesline earlier and finds them mostly dried, so she takes them down, folds them, and sets them back in her bag of supplies. When she considers her next actions, she comes to a realization: there's no point to her staying awake if she has nothing to do. If she were to sleep as much as she possibly can she would reduce the potential impact she'd have on the world as well as reduce the amount of energy she'd spend. Perhaps more importantly, every second asleep is another second that she doesn't have to spend being aware of how much longer she needs to wait. Sleeping as much as possible shouldn't be an issue for her either—she'd gotten plenty of practice doing so as Shirou's Servant, after all. It's ironic; back then she'd slept so much to extend her time in the world, and now she intends to do the same thing to seemingly accelerate the passage of time.
And so she sets her sword at the base of the tree and lays down next to it, closing her eyes once again. Preparations for the coming winter will be easier to make in daylight anyways; even if she hadn't decided to sleep as much as possible, there's little she can do when she can't even see her surroundings. Soon she's fallen asleep, another day of the hundreds of thousands she must wait now behind her.
For the first time in quite a while, Artoria truly dreams. She dreams of the night that changed everything for her, the night she was summoned to that shed by Shirou. She dreams of saving him from being killed by Lancer a second time, then fighting him and being wounded by Gae Bolg. She dreams of fighting and easily defeating Archer—though looking back on their fight now, he'd definitely pulled his punches—a Servant who was completely foreign at the time yet feels strangely familiar within her dream.
She dreams of Rin explaining the situation to Shirou and the long walk to the church she somehow knew she shouldn't enter; why hadn't she warned Shirou that something wasn't right with the building right then and there? She dreams of Shirou and Rin emerging from the church and the three of them beginning their walk back to Shirou's house before being interrupted by Illya and Berserker's sudden attack.
She dreams of fighting the monster and eventually seeing his giant weapon straight towards her as she braces for impact. She dreams of the shock and rage she felt in seeing Shirou sacrifice himself for her for the first time, leaping in the path of the attack meant for her. She dreams of his torn apart body knitting itself back together from what should've been certain death. She dreams of carrying him back to his house, his body healed but still unmoving.
She dreams of changing into the clothes Rin had given her to wear, the clothes Shirou would eventually say looked good on her. She dreams of how her worry was too great for her to sleep, how she'd gone to simply kneel in the dojo until Shirou awoke in the morning and found her there.
Throughout everything, despite it being a mere memory within her dream and her lack of any control of her actions, she treasures being able to see her love's face again. Her already unbreakable resolve hardens even further; no matter how long it takes, how far she must travel, how difficult the road ahead of her is, she will make it back to him.
Upon awakening, the sun is already far overhead; she'd slept through much of the morning. She immediately walks down to the river to freshen up, and as she does so she begins working on the finer details of her plan for the winter.
Based on the environment and recent years, she should have around two months before conditions become too harsh for long term survival. Getting ahead of things and ensuring the village is where she recalls soon is for the best; she knows its general location and her location relative to it, but getting a feel for how long it takes to reach on foot as well as confirming it's not in disarray would be useful for further planning.
Once she's taken care of that, she'll need to start working on making enough money to afford a stay for at least the harshest months. With her skillset, that shouldn't be very difficult. She's noticed a handful of deer in the forest over the past days. If she hunts a few of them over the course of the next few months, she can get a good start on gathering funds by selling their meat while still maintaining her guise as a traveler.
Her planning carries her all the way back to her camp where she sits and eats some of the food she'd collected yesterday. While looking through her supplies she spots her sword, bringing to mind a thought: she should probably start to train again. She may no longer be a king nor Servant, but if she's going to sleep as much as she can then she should try to maintain her body while conscious.
Training by sparring—which had become one of her favorite activities to do with Shirou—is obviously out of the question, as is using any kind of training dummy. Without a better option, when she's finished eating she picks up her sword and begins to simply shadowbox, focusing on her form and technique as she warms her still somewhat stiff muscles. She quickly gets into a rhythm and pushes herself harder and harder, focusing more on strength as she swings the blade with more and more force. Eventually the sword is being swung with the force of her dragon core, far too much for it to handle; the blade fully separates from its hilt mid swing, flies through the air, and embeds itself deep into a tree.
For a moment she simply stares at the lone hilt in shock, but she quickly realizes her mistake. After using holy weapons for so long, she'd neglected to consider that the limit of standard blades is much lower—and if that wasn't enough, the sword she'd just destroyed had also sat out in the elements without any maintenance for weeks, further weakening it. She mentally adds acquiring tools for weapon maintenance to her list of tasks.
Well, she can't exactly just leave the blade where it wound up. She materializes her gauntlets as she walks over to the tree, then grips the metal with her armored hands. It doesn't budge when she tugs on it with just a little bit of force so she pulls harder and harder, and eventually when she's begun to tap into her core it flies loose, knocking her onto her backside.
With the blade freed she sets it beside the hilt and dematerializes her gauntlets again, recognizing the act of attempting repairs to be futile. The sword is nothing more than scrap metal now, but she can worry about that later. For now, she has bigger concerns—namely, her sudden lack of any effective weaponry. She needs a new sword, and if she's going to head towards the battlefield anyways she might as well go scope out the village as well. From what she can recall it's just a few miles down the road, so she should have plenty of time to make it there and back before nightfall.
Her journey to the battlefield goes quicker this time, her growing knowledge of the forest's layout aiding her. Without wasting any time she gets right to searching for a new sword, and she quickly stumbles upon one. However, upon inspection of the blade she notices some small chips, cracks, and various other signs of wear. For a normal person they likely wouldn't be enough to cause issues, at least not for a while, but with her strength those cracks are likely to cascade into a full break like her last sword. No, this sword won't do.
Any swords out on the field are likely to be the same, but perhaps those that were abandoned under more shelter will be in better condition. She makes her way to the enemy's former camp where she'd gathered many of her supplies before where she finds quite a few swords among the debris. She inspects sword after sword, but each has some form of issue—worrying cracks, a dull edge, poor balance. Eventually she finds a satisfactory blade, one that's balanced well enough (not nearly as well as Caliburn or Excalibur were, but none could be) and without any form of major damage. It's not perfect, but it's good enough to defend herself if she ever winds up in danger.
With her new sword in hand, she sets out for the eastern road. Rather than walking along the road itself she enters the forest several dozen yards north of it, wanting to reduce the risk of detection by anyone who may be traveling along the road. Navigating through a dense maze of trees might slow her down somewhat, but it's still preferable to walking out in the open if she hopes to remain unseen.
After a couple of hours she notices the density of the forest decreasing, and at the same time she notices more and more bare stumps left in the ground—she's getting close. Since she knows the general distance to the village now she considers turning back, but she might as well see things through fully and actually reach it to be completely certain, so she continues onward. She creeps through the forest for a few more minutes, making absolutely certain she doesn't make a sound, and finally sees it. The forest breaks away, and on the other side of the tree line she sees buildings.
She considers continuing a bit farther, but that's good enough for now; there's no purpose to pressing on any further now that she's verified the village's location. Instead, she turns to begin her return journey. With a few hours remaining until nightfall she takes her time on the walk back, simply observing the environment around her while she reminisces about the past. She hadn't done something like this since her youth with Kay, when the two of them would run into the woods alone and have adventures from time to time.
For a while she looks back on those memories, but eventually she realizes that she'd stopped in her tracks when she got lost in them, so she shakes herself out of it. Reminiscing can come later, when she's reunited with Shirou—he'd probably love to hear about her childhood. But for now, making sure she doesn't get stranded in the middle of the woods needs to come first.
The next day she awakens from the same dream she'd had the prior night, and just as before she lacked any control of her own movements—even her eyes were on autopilot, which meant trying to pay attention to anything outside of her direct line of sight was quite difficult. Even so, she treasures being able to see Shirou again. It might just be a glorified memory, but at least it's something.
But aside from that, there was one other thing she took away from her dream: Archer's familiarity. They were difficult to focus on, but his eyes definitely had a look of familiarity in them. At the same time, rewatching their short battle is enough to confirm he isn't one of her former knights. How could he be familiar with her, then? There's more to him than meets the eye, but she can't put her finger on it—and unfortunately, merely rewatching the same fight again probably won't be enough for her to make any progress on the mystery without being able to control her eyes.
Thinking about it any further is pointless, so she sets her thoughts aside and goes about her developing morning routine. She freshens up at the river, eats a small portion of her foraged food, and trains with her new sword for a little while. Once complete, she sits and considers what to do for the day.
Well, it's as good of a time as any to get started on winter preparations. She has a plan in mind for how she'll portray herself, but she needs to look the part as well; in other words, she'll be needing a disguise. Going through the clothes she'd gathered from the enemy camp, she pulls out a few things that seem like they'd be worn by a hunter. The final product is a hood, dark tunic, a pair of trousers, and a pair of gloves worn by archers.
If she has her outfit prepared, she may as well put it to the test. She changes into the clothes and finds that though they're not a perfect fit, she's not drowning in them either. Nobody should pay her a second glance at the very least. It also seems unlikely that her clothes would impede her movement, which is very good for her—she lacks a bow and the knowledge and materials to make traps, so her hunting will need to be a bit untraditional. So long as things go well, she should be able to compensate with her core's power in some manner.
That's the theory, at least. Now it's time to put it into action. She exits the clearing where she'd made camp and walks a few hundred feet away, searching for somewhere she could camouflage herself. If she'd retrieved Carnwennan then it would be much easier, but it's not necessary; she's patient enough and has enough time on her hands to make up for its absence. She eventually stumbles upon a bush with a strange outcropping that should be able to hide her, so she crouches down behind it.
For hours she remains completely still, simply lying in wait. It's a boring process, but if she waits long enough a deer will surely enter her sights—and waiting like this will need to become second nature if she hopes to reach Shirou with her sanity intact, so it's almost like training when she looks at it that way. But even so… it would be nice if she at least had Cavall to keep her company while she waited for her prey, like in the old days.
But eventually, her patience is rewarded. At a distance she estimates to be about seventy five yards ahead of her is a large buck. As she silently watches it wander around she considers where to strike. In normal circumstances, with a bow and a hunting dog, she'd aim for its broadside. It wouldn't kill immediately, but the blood trail and dog's senses would be enough to follow after it and recover it when it eventually keeled over. But as things are now, she lacks both a bow and a hunting dog. If she'd ever practiced throwing daggers then she could try to do that rather than shoot it with a bow, but she's not comfortable enough with her aim for that.
If she doesn't have any projectiles that stand a good chance at taking it down, she'll simply have to make herself into the projectile instead—the kill should be as quick as possible, then. When the deer stops for a moment to chew on some grass she sees her chance and begins preparing her mana burst. Power coils in her legs as she rests a hand on her sword, ready to draw it the instant she decides to attack. And in the blink of an eye, she makes that decision. She pounces, closing the distance between her and the deer in less than a second. Before it can realize what's happening her blade is already drawn and impaled straight through the deer's skull from crown to jaw.
The deer dies before it hits the ground. Had anyone witnessed the hunt, her attack would have appeared no different from that of a lion ambushing its prey.
With the deer successfully slain, she now needs to consider recovery of the body—she'd rather not drag the corpse across the forest floor, and though her core provides her enough strength to carry it, it's too large and awkward to get a good grasp of. Leaving it where it fell temporarily, she makes her way back to camp. Her first order of business is to clean the sword of the blood and other matter that now coats it. The metal would corrode if blood is left on it for too long, and the dried blood would cause it to become sticky; best to just get the issue out of the way now.
When the sword is clean, she grabs a large piece of cloth and some rope and returns to the corpse. She tightly wraps it in the cloth and ties the bundle on either end with rope to ensure it all stays together, then slings it over her shoulder. Walking back to camp is a bit more awkward now that she's encumbered, but it's certainly better than it would've been if she attempted to transport the naked corpse.
Upon her return, she sets down the deer and grabs a change of clothes and a "towel" from her bag, then makes her way back to the river; after working the past two days, she could really use a full bath again. She once again ensures she's alone, and when she feels comfortable she steps back onto the water and concentrates on sinking down. This time she's prepared for the chill that awaits, but it still makes her shiver at first.
She eventually finishes cleaning herself and climbs back out of the river, gets dressed, and puts her hair back in a ponytail, then continues onwards to camp. Afternoon turns to evening as she prepares the clothesline to hang her towel on. There doesn't seem to be enough time to reach the village before sunset today, let alone reach the village, sell the deer, and return; her journey will have to wait for tomorrow.
With that decided, there's nothing left to do for now. She lays down under the tree and once again shuts her eyes, hoping that she'll dream of that night once again.
Author's Note
Last time I mentioned that though the beginning and end of this story would be similar to Continuation of the Dream, the journey itself would be different. Aside from Artoria's journey itself, I also intend to show some of Shirou's post-Fate route experiences which I introduced in this chapter by showing what happened on his end right after Saber disappeared (which was partially taken from the visual novel, as should be obvious to those who have read it). How will this tie in? You'll just have to wait and see.
As you probably noticed I'm playing slightly loose with Avalon just for the sake of making a few things later on easier, but I'm not totally changing its capabilities or anything. Its function is to keep its holder alive, and that remains true here—just in a slightly expanded manner. Outside of one other thing way down the line that I'm considering, this is about the extend of the changes I'm making to it, so unless something goes horribly wrong with my writing you don't need to worry about any powercreep with it or anything like that.
The next update should come in another week or two. In the meantime I hope everyone continues to enjoy, I really appreciate the support so far.