Kaiya woke in darkness, alone in her room and with a full bladder. She stumbled to her bathroom to take care of that while only half-conscious, only remembering recent events when the ache in her thighs flared as she headed back to bed. Oh yeah. Right.
I've gotten myself into so much trouble this time, mom….
Suddenly wary of what she couldn't see, she paused on the threshold of her bathroom and said softly, "Arjuna?"
When there was no reply, she frowned. Then she swept up her communicator wristband, noticed it really was the middle of the night, and moved quickly to get dressed. He wasn't here, and that worried her. She couldn't forget what he'd done the last time he'd left her to sleep, nor the empty village the next morning. Perhaps he'd just stepped out, perhaps he'd be right back… but he didn't.
She stepped into the dimly lit corridor beyond her door with no clear idea of where she wanted to go or what she wanted to do. Find him, part of her whispered. Find somebody else, another part of her commanded. Instead of making a decision, she wandered aimlessly in the direction of the communal spaces of the research station.
Every so often she heard the distant, quiet sounds of other Servants arguing or laughing. They almost never slept, but they did usually try to observe the official nighttime hours of the living humans in that they didn't play loud games, have brawls, or put on impromptu concerts between 11pm and 6am.
She passed the darkened cafeteria and paused at a clink from within. Nobody who belonged there would be inside with the lights off. After squinting into the darkness, she leaned against the wall outside, waiting for whoever it was to emerge. When a familiar green-garbed figure stumbled out, holding a bundle made from his cloak, she couldn't help a small smile as she said, "Hi."
Robin Hood soared into the air and landed in a crouch, holding the bundle close to his chest as he looked around wildly. Bleary green eyes focused on Kaiya and he said, "Oh. It's you."
Kaiya looked at him doubtfully. "Are you stealing booze from the kitchens by wrapping it in your Noble Phantasm?"
He turned his body as if to hide the bundle from her gaze. "You can't have any. I'll get yelled at."
"You're going to be more than yelled at if EMIYA finds out you're stealing his alcohol," pointed out Kaiya. "What are you doing with it?"
"Just having a little party with some of the boys." He paused, thinking, and added, "You can't come. I'll get yelled at."
Frowning, Kaiya said, "Are you making up for missing the drinking contest?"
Robin scowled. "Don't you wrinkle your nose at me like that, missy. No matter how cute you are, no booze."
"I don't want any," Kaiya said, rubbing her nose. "I 'm still dealing with the consequences of last time."
"Oh," said Robin. "Right. Him." He frowned down at the bundle and then pushed it into Kaiya's arms. "Hold this a minute."
"Wait—" Kaiya had some idea what he intended, but couldn't stop him before he dematerialized. Only a few seconds later, he rematerialized, his eyes clear, his five o'clock shadow gone, and perfectly sober. "You didn't have to do that."
He took the bundle of bottles back again. "Whatever. Are you all right? We noticed you've been in your room since we got back. He said you were resting." His keen gaze swept up and down Kaiya, and she flushed. She believed all of the marks Arjuna had left were covered by her clothing, but she'd been wrong about stuff like that before. And of course the flush was answer enough.
"Oh," repeated Robin. His eyes dropped to her left hand with its unused Command Seals, and his gaze went faraway. After a moment, he shrugged. "Come on, I'll take you to da Vinci."
"What? Why?" asked Kaiya, with a surge of panic reminiscent of being called to the principal's office.
He raised an eyebrow. "Nightingale, then?"
"No!"
Robin sighed in exasperation. "Come on, Kaiya. You need advice I'm not qualified to give you."
"And you think Nightingale or da Vinci are?" Kaiya was frankly amazed.
Shifting his bundle of bottles, he scratched his nose. "Holmes?" At her skeptical look, he said, "Dantès? That'd get ugly, though. Might as well take you to Karna at that point." A pained expression crossed his face. "Yeah, let's not do that."
"What kind of advice do you think I need?" she asked, a touch sulkily.
Rolling his eyes, Robin said, "You're walking around in the middle of the night, alone, after being incommunicado all day dealing with consequences related to your Servant." His gaze dropped to her hand again. "I'm guessing whatever's going on, you don't hate it. But I happen to know there's a whole set of things you don't hate that are pretty bad for you."
Kaiya twisted her mouth in annoyance. "So you're going to turn me in for smoking behind the gym?"
"Oh my God—" Robin stopped and knuckled his forehead. "You know what? I'm just going to let you—"
"Why can't I just talk to you?" she asked softly.
He stared at her a moment before sighing. "Yeah, okay. How about we find somewhere to sit and you can have a go at convincing me everything's peachy keen."
A quiet voice down the hall said, "Don't you have a Master of you own to annoy, poacher?" Arjuna stood a few yards away, wearing the casual sleeveless form of his outfit. Unexpected pleasure at the sight of him surged through her, and Kaiya inspected him, trying to figure out where he'd been. He didn't look like he'd been fighting, at least.
"Damn it," muttered Robin. He closed his green eyes briefly. When they opened his gaze had a hard light. "All right. Let's do this."
Kaiya glanced at him uneasily, remembering with a surge of guilt how she'd simply let Arjuna threaten him before. He didn't deserve to be tangled up in her bad choices. She shouldn't have interrupted his midnight thievery.
As she was trying to figure out how to release Robin, he crouched down, letting the bottles he'd stolen roll out of his cloak. As he set them upright one by one along the wall, he said deliberately, "Are we friends, Kaiya?"
Pushed completely off her guard, Kaiya said, "What?" Yet while she didn't know where this was going, she couldn't imagine saying no, not when asked so directly like that. It was an odd thought, but as much as any Servant could be her friend, Robin Hood really was. It wasn't the same as her human friends (or Roman) but—"…Yeah, I guess so."
"Right," he said, and stood, swinging his cloak around his shoulders. Only then did he meet Arjuna's calm dark gaze, his own gaze like flint. "There you have it, prince. We're friends. Do you have a problem with Kaiya talking to friends?"
"I am merely my Master's Servant," said the demon, with a small smile and his eyes full of secrets as he spread his empty hands.
"Yeah," said Robin, sounding supremely unimpressed. His mouth twisted and he blew out his breath, jamming his hands in pockets. "Well, you haven't been here very long this time and I'm pretty sure you didn't pay a lick of attention to her on your last go. Princes like you never do notice the staff, do you?"
Arjuna's smile faded as his gaze sharpened. "Careful, poacher."
Kaiya frowned at a growing sense of unease about where Robin was going with this conversation. She didn't like being talked about, even by a friend.
"Oh, I am. Every damned day, prince. But I was talking about your precious Master here. You want to keep her? You be careful. Be careful what games you play. Or you'll lose her. And it may not be the way you expect."
Arjuna stared at Robin for a long moment before saying softly, "I am very careful with what is mine."
Kaiya wanted to say something snide to remind them she was right there but something made her hesitate. The tension between the two men was… odd. Not quite a territorial pissing contest and not quite good ol' boys swapping lore about dem womenfolk…
No. She couldn't make it out. It was probably some Servant thing, echoes of some communication on a level far beyond her weak human senses. Being snide would have to suffice.
"And isn't this all very friendly?" she asked acidly. "Standing around talking about me like I'm not here."
Still holding Arjuna's gaze, Robin said, "Do you still want to go have a chat, Kaiya?"
It was the perfect opportunity to let Robin extricate himself, but after he'd asked her point-blank if they were friends, she didn't know what to do. She couldn't just blow him off now. Friends meant too much to her. Besides, while she didn't need to talk to him, but she couldn't think of anybody she'd rather work through her thoughts on recent events with.
On the other hand, he'd been on his way somewhere else—
"Heya, Robin, did you get—what's this, then?" drawled the gunslinger Billy the Kid, one of Robin's closest buddies. He paced down the intersecting hall, his eyebrows going up as he glanced between Robin and Arjuna.
Arjuna said, "He was offering me some advice. Your concern is… noted, poacher."
Exasperated, Kaiya said, "Arjuna, stop it."
When he smiled at her and said, "Yes, Master," her face went hot and she felt like an idiot, like he'd lured her into ordering him around.
Robin said shortly, "Got caught up in something, Billy. Might be stepping away for a while, so you can take the bottles—"
Still flushing, staring at the floor, Kaiya said, "Go back to your party, Robin. I'll find you later when… when it's not such a big deal."
Robin suddenly turned toward her, his fingers closing around her elbow as he pulled her two scant steps away from both Arjuna and Billy both. "You sure?"
"Yeah," muttered Kaiya. "Nothing I have to say is worth this kind of rigamarole. I don't even know what I wanted now. Just wanted to hang out a little when nothing else seemed to be going on." She glanced up, meeting his frown with one of her own. "Friends, yeah?"
He stared at her before the tightness around his eyes relaxed. "You're an idiot, Kaiya. Yes, friends. It's only been two bloody years." He ruffled her hair, spiking it up. "I'll grab you for coffee later, all right?"
Bottles clinked as Billy started picking them up. Kaiya scowled. "Yes, coffee. Now get out of here before EMIYA comes along and sees what you've done."
Winking, Robin held a finger to his lips, before joining Billy in picking up the booze. He waved casually as they walked down the hall.
As soon as they were out of sight, Arjuna moved close to Kaiya, close enough to put his own hand on her head, finger-combing her spikes back down. "You should be sleeping, Master."
Kaiya jerked her head away. "Where were you?"
The demon smiled. "Did you miss me?"
She gave him a hostile look. "Last time I slept and you went wandering, I regretted it."
"Ah, well, I did warn you," he said softly, but there was an odd curiosity in his gaze.
Staring at him in bewilderment, Kaiya said, "You warned me you were going to go slaughter a bunch of werewolves?"
With a short, scornful laugh, Arjuna said, "You can't convince me you regret those animals getting their just deserts, Master." Stooping to brush his lips from her cheek to her ear, he added, "I thought perhaps you might regret the aftermath you called down, but you don't, do you?"
Kaiya pushed furiously at his chest and he stepped backward immediately, his eyes alight with humor. "Now, were you going somewhere? Allow me to escort you."
"What have you been doing?" she hissed.
Arjuna's eyebrows went up. "Nosy Master, I've been enjoying the Southern Lights from the roof of Chaldea. I didn't expect you to wake so easily without me."
Her scowl fading to merely a frown, she stared up at him. "Really?"
His teeth flashed. "What must you think of me, Master?"
"You did kill the werewolves," she muttered, beginning to once again drift down the hall to one of the observation bubbles. Maybe she could catch the aurora as well.
He followed just behind her. "They saw you as prey. But if it makes you feel better, they would have attacked your precious Ritsuka, too, once she'd won the contest they arranged."
"How do you know?"
Flatly, he said, "I am not wrong about such things." She glanced over her shoulder and saw his mouth twisted bitterly. "It is one of many… gifts I have been given." His eyes narrowed as he met her gaze. "What?"
She skipped back a step, so that she walked beside him. "Stop staying behind me."
After a moment, he said, "You are far too sanguine about the contract you've entered into, Master."
"What, because I don't want you trailing me like a dog?" She blinked up at him as she walked.
Arjuna put a hand on her lower back as if to steer her. "When you fail to keep servants in their place, they're apt to take all sorts of liberties."
Kaiya stopped, looking up at him in astonishment. "You mean you're not?"
Once again the demon smiled, even as something kindled in Arjuna's eyes. "This is exactly what I mean, Master. You should not be so… eager to be alone with me, and yet you sent the poacher away as soon as you saw me."
Her mood darkening, Kaiya said, "I didn't send him away because of you. I sent him away because of me."
His fingers on her back traced up her spine and then provided just enough push that she started walking again. "Oh?"
It sounded like bait for a trap, but Kaiya never had been good at resisting these invitations. They always sparkled with the promise of reinforcing the truth and alienating whoever was listening to her. She muttered, "I'm not worth his time."
"Hah, my Master not worth a poacher's time. You need to work on your jokes, my light."
Whatever froze on her lips at the endearment and she glanced up at him. A shiver ran through her body at his bared teeth and the light of anger in his eyes. His hand pressed harder on her back as he stopped holding himself to her pace, propelling her to a faster walk. When they came to one of the observation bubbles, with the light of antarctic summer dawn just brightening a floor crowded with potted plants, he pushed her in and then pinned her against the curving window-wall.
His eyes still sparking, Arjuna said, "Perhaps I should show you why you should be more wary, Master."
Kaiya licked suddenly dry lips, her heart pounding as she pushed back. "What, are you going to give me a bath again?"
His teeth ground together as his eyes darkened in anger, and he dug his fingers into her hair. "Yes, you did hate that, didn't you? Such a perverse girl. Very well, shall we go even farther?"
He brushed his lips very lightly over hers, holding her head so she couldn't move even a centimeter as he did. After a moment of that, he whispered, "If only you'd held your tongue, my light." He gave her another featherlight kiss. "Then you might be getting what you so clearly want."
She opened her mouth against his, trying to nip him. When that didn't work, she twisted her legs to kick at him and scratched his chest with her nails. He ignored all of this to continue delicately kissing her.
When she instead licked him, his chest rumbled in a growl and he responded savagely, forcing her mouth open and stroking his tongue against her own—but only for a few heartbeats. Then he murmured, "Tsk tsk, Master," and returned to his careful, exquisite teasing.
It didn't take long before Kaiya was convinced he intended to drive her insane. With just his lips and the lightest touch of his tongue, he had her melting inside, with the tips of her breasts aching and desperate for more. It was like being in a very particular form of nightmare, without the ability to dream herself to a climax. And in between kisses he murmured to her, an endless litany of unwanted sweetness.
"My precious, sweet Master, so cute, so adorable, mine, mine, darling, I'll always protect you, Master, poor little Master, trapped, wanting so much, ah, poor Master…"
At one point footsteps echoed down the corridor and stopped just out of view of Kaiya's peripheral vision. She was only distantly aware at first, her entire body one burning circuit, but when Arjuna lifted his head briefly and the footsteps hurried away, she groaned at the realization of the stories that would definitely spread now.
In response, he kissed her again, more passionately, and she clutched his head, pulling him closer. As the kiss deepened into something less custom-tailored to torment her, she whimpered, wondering if she now could get him to take her back to her room or maybe a handy closet to finish her off. Wasn't there one right down the hall where they got the water for the observatory plants?
But although his kisses had deepened he showed no sign of wanting to move past that stage, no matter how frantic she became. She pulled on his hair, which made him use his teeth. But that was all the headway she'd made when the alarm went off.
It was blaring, loud, with the lights flashing in a sequence Kaiya knew. She struggled to remember it as Arjuna lifted his head, his hands loosening in her hair. Blaring. Alarm. What was it?
Oh.
They'd just discovered yet another pseudo-Singularity. All Rayshift-related hands on deck, briefing in a quarter of an hour.
Kaiya sagged against the wall as Arjuna once again smoothed her hair. She felt exhausted and trembly from Arjuna's teasing, so much so that when he lifted her chin to give her one more kiss, she couldn't do anything but accept it. And in fifteen minutes, she'd be briefed on her very first real Singularity as Chaldea's newest Master.
Author's Note:
Next up we start my own take on Salem, which is not exactly the Salem you might know.