Though the rest of the world had burned, they told her Chaldea was yet safe. But what kind of a haven could it be for Ritsuka when soon they would send her out again? She wouldn't go alone, but her allies were each double-edged blades, as interested in tasting her tender skin as they were in the enemies.

She had a room of her own, though, and Mash and Olga Marie had promised to kill any Servant who violated its sanctity without her consent. It let her sleep a little more deeply than before. Deep enough and long enough to dream.

Hands, so many hands, all over her body; they pulled her through clouds the color of sunburn, closer and closer to a throbbing core. It fluttered in time with her breath, pacing her pulse, and each peak made the sweat of anticipation bead on her skin. Then the hands touching her everywhere pulled her through the core and she and it were one, floating on a sunless sea, where the only sound was the lapping of waves and her own gasping breaths.

"I've been waiting for you, Ka-chan." It was a smooth, low voice, pleasant to hear. It came from the ocean that held her, and it touched her in all the places the water didn't.

Then, all at once, she heard the words as well as the voice and she flailed her way to consciousness. Or—

What—?

Shh, shh, my pet. It's always hardest the first time.

Twin lines, cool and electric, traced themselves over her hot skin, mounting peaks to slide into a sheltered valley. In response, fire swept over the land.

And Ritsuka knew herself. She was not awake, nor was she asleep. She was dreaming, and in her dream, she stood in a throne room both vast and close. High walls reached into darkness, draped with billowing silks that shone with their own ghostly light and moved as if caught in a rising storm. A smiling man stood before her, and beyond him rose a throne on a mirrored dais, tall, dark and empty, with wisteria growing around it.

Tall birdcages stood on either side of the dais, but only one was occupied, containing a blond woman with dead eyes, a golden crown and a veil across her features. She sat quietly on her heels, while at its base lounged another woman, younger but almost identical. She was barely dressed in red, with a spiked collar. She had manacles and broken chains at her wrists and ankles, and her green eyes burned as she stared at Ritsuka.

"Ka-chan," came that smooth, pleasant voice again. She heard both a play on her name and child of fire, and shuddered.

"Ka-chan, look at me," he said, and her unwilling gaze was dragged to the man in front of her. His hair and skin shone like moonlight and his dark eyes were as fathomless as the sunless sea. He wore clothing the color of night, and smiled gently. "Yes, here I am. But you must be careful where your eyes wander, darling daughter of disaster. There is so much you're not yet ready for."

Ritsuka stared at him, her skin prickling. His face was smooth and his features fine, but the way he looked at her made the hungry stares of her Servants seem innocent. His shadowed violet gaze seemed like a sheer curtain drawn across obscenities she couldn't even imagine. Unconsciously, she took a step backward.

A cacophony washed over her: the clash of weapons, the screams of horses, and the sobs of the dying. A wind lifted her hair and she shuddered as she realized the space behind her was far more expansive than seemed possible. Dread crept over her, and the sure knowledge that something terrible was back there. It seemed very likely that if she took even one more step back, she'd tumble over a precipice into hell itself.

The man's eyes crinkled as he smiled again. "Don't look," he said softly.

It was too much. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw the impossible battlefield that the throne room became. Women wailed beside dying men and were spit upon the lances of other men. Horses shrieked and fell, crushing riders so that mount and knight screamed in unbroken agony. Fires surged, belching curses into the sky, while those warriors who yet lived fought on, covered with the blood of the fallen.

The horror overwhelmed Ritsuka and she cried out as she turned away rapidly, her shoulders hunched and her head down as she put her arms over her head. Then she was being pulled against a warm chest, muscular arms slipping around her comfortingly. Tears sprang to her eyes in rejection of what she'd seen, of everything she'd seen since that terrible day the world burned.

"Shh, shh," whispered the man. "This is why I had to do what I did, you know. Shh, sweet Ka-chan." He pressed his face into her hair as he murmured soothing nothings, his arms tight around her as she wept. Then his mouth was beside her eye, his tongue flicking over her tears, trailing down her cheek. When he reached her lips, he began to kiss her as if it was the most natural thing in the world. His lips were soft and his tongue delicate as he traced her mouth.

When he effortlessly pushed past her lips, she could feel it as a shock all through her body, as if he'd reached inside her deepest self and split her apart. Ritsuka's eyes widened and her tears dried. His mouth felt so good against hers, and once again the fire of desire raced through her, filling the canyon he'd made with an inferno.

But she wasn't deployed now; she wasn't on a mission; this wasn't for a contract; she was sleeping; she was supposed to be safe—

His arms around her were so very strong. She couldn't escape. All she could do was submit.

All you want to do is submit, whispered that voice in her soul.

"Hurry and kill him!" hissed an older woman's voice. "Hurry, hurry!"

The younger woman said, sounding bored, "Be quiet, mother, or I'll hurt you again."

Ritsuka's chest tightened as the man's teasing tongue made something twist inside her. Dreams of rusty blades against her skin, and how good they'd feel, flashed through her mind. He bit her lip gently and she stiffened at the jolt of pleasure that sheeted through her.

Then he sighed and said, "Ah, Ka-chan, Ka-chan, I've waited so long for you." He lifted his head and smiled at her again. When she gave an instinctive, frightened shove against his chest, he took his arms from her and said, "Don't turn around again, okay? That banquet isn't meant for you."

"Who… who are you?" stammered Ritsuka, clutching her chest as the canyon he'd opened closed again, leaving her feeling a little closer to whole.

"Ah, what a terrible question, Ka-chan. You know the only answer that will matter to you is the one you find yourself. But come with me, and I'll show you my land."

He held out a hand to her in a courtly way, and when she didn't accept it, he smiled again. Then her hand was in his, and he drew her after him to the throne on its mirrored dais. She stared at the reflective surface and balked at the base. "That's not solid. I'll fall in."

"Some do, some do. But not you. Not today. Come, meet another of my pets." The man pulled her up the five steps of the dais and although her feet splashed through the quicksilver surface, she didn't sink.

Her host walked her past the throne, which had a wooden crown with twelve gems tossed carelessly on the seat. Behind the throne was a corridor with the same quicksilver floor and blank wooden walls. At the end of the corridor rose a staircase in a tower, with another cage at its base. This one spanned a whole wall, but all Ritsuka could see within were play structures and the skeletons of mid-sized animals mixed in with bedding material that looked like golden hair.

"Come out, come out, little one," called the man. "Come meet the mistress of calamity. I've told you all about her, haven't I?"

A tiny white creature, no bigger than a kitten, poked its head out from the ribcage of a dog. Then it scampered up one of the play structures and emerged from a tunnel at Ritsuka's eye level. After inspecting her, it said, "Fou?"

"Yes, really, you scamp," said the man. "You may pet him, Ka-chan. He'd like that very much."

Hesitantly, Ritsuka reached two fingers through a wire mesh that didn't seem small enough to contain the small creature. The fur atop his head was warm and silky, and stroking him momentarily made Ritsuka feel somehow more human, like she shared something with all those people in the incinerated world who went through life distracted and unafraid.

Then the creature reached up with teensy tiny paws, took her finger between them, and bit down hard.

Once again, she cried out, the sharp pain freezing her up. But her host put his hand on her lower back and the sensation of razor teeth embedded in her finger transformed into something… good. So good. So hot. Her entire body throbbed with need. The scent of lilac and lotus enfolded her as her host said, "Thank you, Cath Palug."

The creature chirped rapidly as it released her finger from its jaws, but Ritsuka, dazed by the rush of pain and lust, only had eyes for her host. She reached up to him, pressing her bleeding finger against his mouth. When he looked down at her with enigmatic eyes and licked at her finger, she swayed and whined in the back of her throat at how good it felt.

His hand tightened at her back as he licked her finger again and then sucked at it, making her groan. Then he pulled her hand away, lacing her fingers within his. "Come along, little phoenix of desire. Up the stairs."

Ritsuka gasped as he pulled her after him again, trying to get control over herself. What had happened? He'd touched her and the pain had become… madness.

Her finger no longer hurt. There was no longer any sign it had ever been hurt, and when she tried to remember the pain, she could only remember it as a dry, rational fact. The animal had bitten her, and being bitten like that hurt. Therefore, she had been in pain.

But all she could recall was the pleasure of the penetration of the creature's teeth slicing through her skin and pushing inside her.

Madness.

The stairs followed the wall of the tower, and her host walked steadily up them, her hand in his. Ritsuka felt no fatigue from their steady climb, but the higher they got, the more her normal doubt and fear reasserted itself. At last, her head was clear enough that she balked, pulling her hand free as she stopped.

"Please tell me what's going on?" she asked softly.

He looked back at her and smiled again. "You're dreaming. You know you are." When she didn't move, he sighed, pushing a strand of her hair away from her face. "You're destined to give your body to a thousand spirits, but your dreams, sweet Ka-chan… those are mine."

Ritsuka blinked, fear and shameful excitement both making her stomach clench. "A thousand spirits…?"

Her host rolled his eyes humorously. "Give or take a few. Destiny counts poorly, you know." He tilted his head and stroked her face, and his fingers were cool and pleasant despite her fear.

Then she was holding his hand again as they walked up the stairs, higher and higher, until at last they came to a door. A simple door, with no lock and the most basic of handles. At his nod, she opened it.

Beyond was a round room, with eight windows in the curving wall, and a bed in the center. The bed was simple, as the door had been simple: a mattress on a heavy wooden frame, with a violet blanket over pillows. That was all.

It was just a bed.

"This is your land?" Ritsuka asked uncertainly.

"This is your room," her host corrected. "My land lies beyond the tower."

"Why… why do I have a room here?" It was a terrifying proposition. This place made Chaldea seem friendly and comforting.

"You know why." He raised her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles lingeringly. When she opened her eyes again, she stood next to the bed, her hand still at his lips.

Her breath came hard and fast, and she pulled her hand away from him once more. "No." She looked around frantically. The door had closed, and the ground glimpsed beyond the windows seemed very far away.

"You're afraid, Ka-chan, but you don't need to be," her host said in amusement. "I like you far too much to use you up so quickly. I have so much I need you for."

"You're a liar," she muttered. "A thousand spirits… Heroic Spirits?" She thought of the hungry eyes back at Chaldea and shuddered. "You're a liar."

His soft gaze sharpened. "You've already let the Sage of the Forest come inside you. And for what?"

Somehow she was in his arms and he was kissing her neck. Her nipples, painfully hard, brushed against his chest and she moaned.

"Because you enjoyed it, Ka-chan." He kissed her ear. "You let him lie to you. You let him use you. Because you wanted to be violated. Stretched. Filled. I promise you, you'll enjoy what I do to you, too."

And, oh god, she did. Every flick of his tongue, every movement of his hands, the way his body pressed against hers and his mouth moved against her skin. His breath in her hair as he whispered her name.

Then he pulled away and they stood beside the bed still. She swayed, but caught herself with a stumble.

"Do you have a name for me yet?" he asked her, with his smile only at the corners of his eyes.

Her dream whispered to her, and she repeated the words numbly, staring at the floor instead of him. "Merlin Alter."

He laughed long and loud, and when he stopped. "Alter. I like that. I can be that for you, Ka-chan. Now, go to the window, and look, and see where you are."

Slowly, but under her own will and her own power, Ritsuka turned to the brightest window and went to see a twilight land, where something dark flew against the sun.

He walked out on the battlefield at Camlann, and the battle ended, and with it human independence. There was never another war. Throughout the land, people lead quiet lives. He walks through the dreams of his subjects and the evil he carries with him makes even the most innocent of dreams into nightmares. He makes both pleasure and pain a terror because they court his attention. He can so easily turn one to another. Or he can pass on by. Even if your leg is caught in a bear trap on a winter's day, pray he passes by. That which his attention falls on is never the same again. They're lost in dreams, or they're dead, called away, or broken. Sometimes nobles scheme, and armies are raised. He allows this. But no battle has ever been fought to completion, and no army has ever returned home.

Ritsuka woke up in her own bed at Chaldea, to a tiny tongue licking her face. "What…?" she said groggily.

"Good morning, Senpai," said Mash cheerfully. "We have a new friend today, and it seems like he likes you very much!"

Ritsuka focused, pushing away the tiny tongue. Two teensy-tiny paws caught her finger, and licked more.

She stared down at Fou, horror prickling down her spine. "How… what? What is this? How did he get here?"

"I don't know," said Mash happily. "We found him this morning in the halls. Da Vinci says I should take care of him until we figure out why he's here. Since he likes you too, won't you help me, senpai?"

Ritsuka glanced up into her kohai's eyes, shining as they'd never shone before, and then down at the kitten-sized creature sitting in the palm of her hand. He looked up at her with eyes that seemed to know everything, every secret she had, every dream she escaped.

"Fou? Fou." He jumped onto her shoulder, curling his fluffy tail around her neck.

"Senpai?" said Mash, worry darkening her voice.

And she knew: all she could do was submit.