There was something wrong with his Master.
Arthur peered down at the sleeping boy, taking in the stillness gripping his form. The king's vigil was absolute, begun after a wave of something ephemeral traveled down their bond, but he felt ill-equipped to handle this oddity. Shirou was sleeping incorrectly, the boy vacillating between an unbreathing stillness and a soft murmur—but for his heart beating between breaths, thought the Servant, he might have been a corpse.
Hour after hour, the pattern showed no signs of change. His Master lay unmoving, he would mumble in his sleep, taking a short gulp of air, he would return again to his unnatural quietude, and, then, the cycle would begin once more. This clearly was not the rest of a regular human, Arthur knew, and yet, for all that the king felt the urge to end whatever might be ongoing, he would not be the one to break this cycle, not when it caused the boy no apparent harm. Merlin taught him better than to tamper freely with the unknown.
But, he asked himself for what must have been the dozenth time, what was this?
It could not be an affliction, for the link to Shirou's soul and status displayed no irregularities, and given his stalwart guardianship, further ensconced in this fortress of young Illyasviel, it was almost certainly not enemy action. No, the cause of this reaction in his Master was internal, Arthur was sure. The question remained as to its nature.
"Shirou, get up!"
There was also something wrong with his Master's younger sister, he sighed, thoughts shifting as her screech echoed through the castle halls. For a guilty moment Arthur wished that she were the one still and quiet, rather than his Master.
Truly, sisters were the bane of every man's existence. A tired smile graced his lips as the thought dredged up memories of Morgan tormenting him and the knights in one of her more civil phases. Her stunt with the round table was most ingenious, and he was glad to keep the engravings once the enchantment was drained and repurposed, but the scheme was absolutely infuriating. No wonder, really, that this modern age often conflated her with Morgause as mother of...Mordred.
He refocused on the boy who summoned him, his cheer fading as quickly as it had arrived.
What did it say about him, Arthur wondered, that he looked upon Shirou as a chance to repent as a parent? What madness was it that this second chance—third, in truth, though the details of the Fourth War over the insultingly-named Grail were lost to him—saw him more indulgent of the boy now alive than desperate to regain his son long dead?
The king gave a bitter laugh.
It spoke to his folly and shortsightedness, no doubt. Camelot was never far from his thoughts, but this was far from the first time he'd put his immediate surroundings over his less-concrete ideals. His murder of the children of May, as if the Pharaoh were the hero of Exodus; his call for Guinevere's death, as though she were the one to seduce Lancelot. He was a murderer and an executioner and still, still he found no fault in himself but impetuousness and a void of empathy. These were calculated acts, all for the continuity of his kingdom, and the existence of his regret did not itself deem them iniquitous.
That was not so for his son. There was nothing moral in dismissing him. There was nothing practical in punishing a child for his father's sins. When the Son gave himself for the sins of man, he fulfilled the Old Testament, but the words of Deuteronomy on fault stuck with him more than any parables of the savior: it was for his own sins that Camelot fell, not his son's, and it was for his ill-treatment of Mordred that he died to the child he so grievously wronged.
The servant shook his head, hovering a hand over the hair of his sleeping Master before drawing it away.
Was this really another chance? Shirou was not his son, for all his forthright attitude and drive towards heroism reminded the king of Mordred. The boy was no child, to be taught humility and kindness; he was a man grown, even if his society recognized it not. He was a tool to be used to undo Arthur's own mistakes, and nothing more.
His Master could not be more, and still Arthur could not find in himself the strength to deny him his suicidal wish to fight the heroes of eld. He sighed. Gilgamesh was right.
What a poor king he was, unwilling to exert himself to rule.
At the thought, Shirou twitched, inhaling as if in response to Arthur's self-effacement. The boy shuddered once, twice, and his eyes tore open, changed and pupilless and aglow with the fire of an angry god. His Master's right arm shot up violently, a wireframe outline only vaguely resembling a sword flickering to his hand. The construct-to-be spasmed, the air around it thrumming almost tangibly; the wires broke, and something half-solidified in its place, a fabrication of fire and crystal and the surreal...!
Shirou rose, not standing so much as unfolding, limbs jerking to attention as the sword-thing in his hand drew him upwards like a marionette. His mouth opened, and—
and—
and—
and what a poor king Arthur was, a poorer man, a man, a being
righteous and proud despite atrocities committed in the name of an absent god and an ungrateful land and an unreachable ideal of purity founded on a lie of justice and peace in a world full of failing wills and faltering souls and warnings unheeded until rebellion against the good, and though he'd always been there, guardian of the gate, did they not deserve this, the fall into
disgrace and death and damnation and fire and flood and winds and smoke and turmoil
absent the one who would be elevated, living a future and a past and plucking at them as though they were the tearing strings of a discarded lyre?
Was the hell to come not of their own making?
Was this not their own sins come to roost?
Was this not correct?
—and Arthur stepped back, a lance of pain burning through his head, a faltering hand clenching over the invisible form of Excalibur. It provided little comfort, but, still, it grounded him. He'd fought through far worse, recalled the king, a grimace coming to his lips unbidden; Merlin had done worse, the seer calling upon the stars to direct his fate, misfortune and pressure come upon him until he could persist through the worst of divinations and most elaborate of hindrances. His mentor told him of four paths before him, four children that might have been his in Mordred, Amhar, Loholt, and Constantine, and the wizard chose for Camelot the darkest of them all. Why else would he, the man crowned king by prophecy and a rock-driven sword, have struggled so horribly against the coming of the child foretold to dethrone him?
Why else, he thought, gritting his teeth as the pain doubled and redoubled, a spike of fire in his mind. Why else would he have saved only Mordred from all the children he had murdered, believing he could fight his fate twice-over? Why else would he have even tried?
Arthur raised his blade in challenge at the thing wearing his Master's skin, ignoring the heat blooming off the creation in its hand. And indeed, he saw, this was not Shirou; Shirou could not look at him with an expression so dead and alien, so empty and yet full of the imperceptible. The boy could not float akin to a puppet upon strings of twine, form twisting jerkily, controlled not by his own muscles but by the echo of some other motion...could he?
Arthur's eyes widened.
But that was wrong. Shirou could. Shirou did.
This was not a possession, he concluded, a bead of sweat trickling down his leonine brow. Shirou had behaved like this before, though not to this extent nor to this degree of subsumption. He had experienced this with Gawain, with Kay, with Lancelot, even, on the battlefield against the King of Uruk.
This was no possession. It was an incarnation.
The thought brought with it an obvious query, and Arthur wasted no time in asking it.
"Spirit, will you identify yourself?"
Silence. Arthur tried again.
"If that is a answer you will not give, then respond to this: what manner of entity are you, to have overcome my Master's soul so rapidly?"
It turned Shirou's pupilless gaze towards him. Arthur flinched.
The boy's eyes were no longer glowing blank. They bulged. They stretched. They were placid, featureless beyond an internal glow, and still they tore at the atmosphere within the room, a haze of gold drawing in Arthur's gaze only to trap it in an ochre vise. It opened Shirou's mouth once more, and—
His future. His past.
Arthur did not so much hear the creature in Shirou's skin as he sustained it, the words puncturing themselves into his brain with the force of a steel rod.
He staggered for an instant and dropped his sword, Excalibur vanishing as Pysguread twisted to his grip in its place, silver blade glowing a faint, pulsing white. Arthur fought off a shudder as he brought the rapier's tip to the neck of the thing before him.
"End your riddle, spirit. What is your name?"
He'd expected a reaction. A ghastly grin, a low chuckle, even a smirk. A twinkle in Shirou's stolen eyes. Perhaps a grimace.
It did not move; its lips did not twitch. It did not gloat, nor laugh, nor express even a bare facsimile of emotion. It simply stared at him.
The king growled, squaring his shoulders as he pressed the sword's tip into his Master's throat.
"Answer me!"
Shirou's lips parted.
Who are you to demand this of us, shade of a long-dead king?
Arthur was prepared this time, faltering only slightly at the weight in his head. He pressed his rapier in further, to the point of piercing skin. A bead of silver blood formed at the incision.
"How dare you. Who am I to demand it? As though I require the right to know what creature is speaking to me from the lips of a boy for whom I care? As though who I am has even the minutest bearing upon this violation, upon your trespass into the very soul of my Master?"
The monarch did not need to breathe, and still he gave a heaving breath.
"I am Lord Arthur Pendragon, King of the Britons and greatest of the Christian Worthies. I am Servant Saber, called to a time after my own in search of a mockery of the grail claimed by my knights an epoch past. I am the foremost disciple of the prophet Merlin Ambrosius, and my memory alone is a symbol of hope for the people of Great Britain. I am he who has placed your host under my protection, and I demand of you your identity!"
It leaned into Arthur's blade. The wound on Shirou's neck opened wider, rivulets of silver trickling down Pysguread as the entity wearing the boy's skin stood unblinking, staring again into Arthur's eyes. The blood dripped down the king's arm, pooling at his elbow before splashing to the wooden floor.
The teenager's lips split once more. The heat of the weapon in its hands seemed to double.
We are Shirou Emiya. We are ██████. We are your summoner, as he was and as he will be.
It raised the sword-thing in the boy's hand—or perhaps the construct raised the boy?—and opened its mouth further, bathing the room in light as the red of his gums and the stained ivory of his teeth melded to incandescent mercury, blooming and crackling as though it were fire and not flesh.
From the corners of the room came a faint whisper, then another. Another. Another. Another. The sounds began to pile upon themselves, whisper upon whisper, sigh upon sigh, coalescing and layering and merging until of the voices there remained only one originating from the lips of the incarnation.
"Why do you distrust us, Child of Uther? Did we not bring you to this plane, our blood and our prayer resonating with the world to call you forth? Does the truth of us truly displease you so?"
Shirou's face twitched, lips curving upwards around the roiling silver as though the thing steering the boy knew of smiling but was unfamiliar with the act. It took a step forwards.
Arthur moved back in turn, dispersing Pysguread in a splash of silver blood. Excalibur appeared in its place, invisible edge tilted towards the spirit in his Master's skin. More liquid dripped from his gauntlet to the wood below.
"We have accommodated your imposition as best we are able. Your presence alone pollutes our core, the faerie mystery that envelops you scrabbling ceaselessly against our fire and our light. We have been gracious, and kind, and compassionate. We have not failed. We have not earned this caution."
The boy's head tilted. It tilted too far, hanging just shy of slack before abruptly jerking upwards again. It did not blink.
"What is it that you doubt, Last Ruler of fallen Camelot, that you would raise your sword against we who brought you from the endless?"
Distrust, thought Arthur with a mental scoff. As if witnessing his charge come undone to this puppet of silver provoked mistrust, and not a burning hate? Did the parasite before him truly fancy itself his Master? Did it consider his rejection to be simple doubt?
How presumptuous. How absurd. Shirou was talented, to be sure, and his skills well surpassed those available to the men of this time. Arthur might even call him an anomaly, a gleaming gem in this modern sea of rough-hewn stone. The boy was strange, dedicated to his creed in a way few of his knights could boast, and ever so slightly inhuman, fire and steel set steadfast behind his amber gaze.
He was not this. His summoner's mouth did not drip with quicksilver fire. Shirou's eyes did not twist space. His words did not pierce Arthur's skull with the force of a knight's charge. His second chance, his hope twice-over...his Master was not this.
Arthur met the creature's gaze, unflinching. He raised Excalibur, mentally commanding a lock to unfasten. A click sounded through the room, and the sword glowed into visibility.
"Shirou Emiya summoned me. Not you. Him. I know not the exact nature of your delusion, but I do not care to indulge it."
His lips twisted into a snarl.
"Leave, before I force you."
The sound it made in return defied description. It was pity and calm and dismissal, a synesthetic mixture of sentiments conveyed to Arthur's mind with a faint ringing in accompaniment, a blue-gold-lavender swirl impossibly heard. Shirou's shoulders slackened, as if pantomiming a shrug.
"Arthur Pendragon, you do not understand. Shirou Emiya is our nascent form. We are your conjurer."
It twisted the boy's lips into another non-smile.
"We are not a threat. We are not a failure on your part. We are not an error."
The heat in the room spiked as the silver blood below began to roil, rippling back and forth, sheets of angry bubbles popping as the floor seemed to tilt and sway. It boiled angrier, raging higher and higher still until with a tremendous burst it rose as one, shifting phase to metallic steam. The mist glowed, first grey and then crimson and bronze, gold and steel and the warmth of hearths and the translucence of lightning and the rippling glow of burning coal, fiery swirls and mesmerizing divots, all mirage and assault on the king's vision and mind.
Arthur stared at the haze as it twisted on itself, patterns extending to echoes of themselves that shrunk in turn, fractal forms tessellating the air to a scale far smaller than the servant's eyes could perceive. The kaleidoscopic mosaic swirled, colors bleaching from the inside out as the infinite repetition was eaten by waves of blinding white, a two-dimensional window forming in the air before the servant. It flickered with static, a rainbow of colors weaving themselves across the edifice, and faded to transparency.
He looked into the portal.
The king's eyes strained as they locked on the images playing within: the fields of Britain, a haze of indigo suffused throughout; his coronation, dots of muted, militant grey dappling the crowd and his crown; the lady of the lake and the sword she held, glowing an iridescent green; his sisters and his son and his wife, each pulsing an angered red; his knights, chains of gold layered over them and piercing their hearts; the bloody earth of Camlann, burning an orange so vivid it was nearly white.
He saw more.
He saw a rebel exhorting a fortress' defenders to deny themselves to a legion of gleaming steel. He saw a weathered man sitting in the desert, parched lips cracking open as a flock of birds flew to meet him. He saw a man screaming as a great temple collapsed atop him and those watching on. He saw a woman holding a red apple to her lips, taking a bite that sent blood flying through the air. He saw a man twisting on himself, limbs stretching and bulging and tearing as a rictus grin fixed itself on his face. He saw a man standing in a graveyard of weapons, rusted gears creaking together in the distant reaches of the world.
He saw a child stumbling through a golden fire, collapsing, and picking itself up once more, its skin now lit aflame. He saw a storm pour indigo rain atop the child, the gold fading to embers, and he saw the fire's hue shift as it died, shining bronze as it fell to a smolder. He saw a tree sprout beneath the child, growing in a blink from sapling to titanic oak. He saw the child peek out from the top of the tree, and leap, arm outstretched to the skies, growing and shedding its skin and its bones as it became a cloud of lightning-riddled red.
He saw the thing before him in Shirou's half-molten skin.
He saw the mists dissolve. He felt the heat die down.
He heard it whisper to him.
"We are fated."
And as Shirou's insensate body collapsed forwards into Arthur's hastily readied arms, the spell broke.
AN:
When I said way back in chapter 2 that Shirou was still Shirou, I was telling the truth. It was not the whole truth.
Arthur's perspective is a challenge to write, primarily because I've given him a very formal & ostentatious voice. This is fine when it shows through dialogue, but as soon as it creeps into the narration, there's a battle to wage between clarity, the inherent surrealism of the situation, and his own outmoded patterns of speech and thought.
I was intending to have about 3 more scenes in this chapter, and this could use some more editing to further reduce the purple prose, but I decided to submit what I have instead of prolonging the wait for however long it would be.
Also! I am extraordinarily surprised that 200+ people (or at least content aggregator bot accounts, let's be honest) are fascinated enough by this indulgent writing project with nothing in the way of consistency to keep reading, but...thank you! I write for myself, first and foremost, but it makes me happy to know that this silly little story might make someone else's day better.