Fate/stay night and Fate/zero are the property of TYPE-MOON. This story is a work of fanfiction, and the author makes no claim to these properties. Some lines of dialogue have been excerpted from the above works in their entirety in this fanfiction. They are from the translations by mirror-moon and Baka-Tsuki, respectively.
I have updated chapter 1 to fix several minor grammar and style issues, and to make a formatting change. On a related note, Da-Guru has joined my pre-readers, or perhaps my post-readers. He is graciously checking over this story in his limited free time, and I'll be uploading more polished versions of the previous chapters as he finishes.
I would prefer not to respond to individual reviews in author's notes. I believe I responded to all signed reviews for chapter one. If you would truly like your question answered, I encourage you to register for this site.
For the time being, it looks like I will be publishing a new chapter about once every three to four weeks. This will persist until I have built up a buffer of several chapters, at which point updates may become more frequent. As an exercise in accountability and progressing tracking, I will try to post status updates to my profile regularly.
Finally, I must beg the indulgence of experts on British history and Arthurian legends. The myths are already something of an anachronism stew, and the details given in Fate/stay night don't clarify much. I spent a great deal of time doing research, which somewhat delayed this chapter (and made me realize the need for a buffer), but I eventually decided that I would have to settle for "good enough" if I wanted to proceed.
Continuation of the Dream
Part One: Waking from the Dream
II
Arturia hears the yells and shouts of children well before she reaches the stream. From the volume of the sound, it seems as though all the children in the village accompanied whichever one was tasked with bringing her the scrap cloth she requested. When she rounds the final bend in the well-worn dirt path, she pauses, overcome with nostalgia. The sight of children playing was not a common one to King Arthur, and it reminds her of her own childhood, playing with her siblings, the children of her foster father. Although the games they played may have been different, the general screaming and chasing each other endlessly is the same for all children, she thinks.
She smiles at the memories as she continues to the bank of the stream, where a basket of rags waits by the bank. The stream bends here, and the outer bank of the bend where she stands is gently sloped. The shallow, clear water of the stream along the bank sparkles in the evening light, and Arturia stands, momentarily forgetting her task in the tranquility of the environment.
The absence of the cries of the children draws her back to herself, and she realizes they're pointing at her and whispering. Curious, she sits and tries to hear what they're saying, but only scraps of conversation are audible.
"-covered'n blood-"
"-ther said he killed three knights!"
"...said... bandits, not knights."
"...amazing!"
Arturia stops listening to the children as she begins removing her armor. She stacks the pieces neatly to her side, and kneels at the edge of the stream. Taking a rag from the basket next to the armor and wets it in the stream, she begins wiping clean the front piece of her breastplate. The familiar routine of cleaning her armor is soothing, and helps her relax from the stress of the day. She reflects as she scrubs the blood off of her greaves that this was a day she never expected to have, and every day in the future will be, as well.
The prophecy Merlin showed her of the inevitable end if she took up Caliburn has been fulfilled, and yet she still lives. She wishes she could ask him his advice; although the man is often troublesome, his wisdom is peerless. However, she has no means to travel to Camelot at the moment, nor any interest in doing so. Although she thinks herself unworthy for feeling, Arturia resents the betrayal of her knights. Even though she knew it would happen, she still resents it.
"I didn't think it would hurt this much." No matter how much she tried to prepare for it, to be betrayed by the country she sacrificed so much to protect makes her heart, the heart she threw away as king, twist with grief. Even though she gave up her life as a human being, even though she took upon herself the sins necessary to protect the country from invaders, even though she endured the murmurings of her people to dispense justice, her payment was still betrayal. She does not regret it, but instead wishes she could have done more.
Arturia sighs heavily as she picks up her last piece of armor, her left gauntlet, setting the other, wiped mostly dry of water, on the grassy slope behind her to finish drying. Her reverie is interrupted by the arrival of a group of women from the village, carrying baskets of laundry and talking quietly amongst themselves. They settle down to wash a short distance downstream of her, and she turns her attention to the gauntlet in her hand.
Now that it is clean of blood, she inspects it for damage. It blocked two blows today, but the steel shows no damage. Arturia smiles in satisfaction as she puts it with the rest behind it, then touches her shoulder with a frown. The cut she took from the second blow is healed, and there is no pain when she probes at the wound. However, the cut in her clothing remains, and her eyes narrow in irritation as she fingers the edges of the hole. She does not know how to repair clothing. Although she could close the tear, her needlework would be rough, at best. Her thoughts remind her that her clothing is bloody as well. Her eyes flicker to the peasant women upstream, but they are paying no attention to her.
Arturia stands and pulls off her surcoat. Her tunic and pants are sufficient for warmth in this weather, and she believes that she can get most of the blood out, as it has not dried in yet. A knight's training includes basic laundering skills, if only because of the quantity of dirt their clothing accumulates, but Arturia lacks the proper equipment. Still, she sits again with a sigh and submerges it in the stream. While holding the garment under the water with one hand, she pulls the left shoulder of her shift and tunic around where she can see them. As she had suspected and hoped, there is no blood.
'So Avalon is still as powerful as it ever was,' she thinks with relief. 'Only time will reveal if it still renders me ageless. If it does...' Arturia shakes her head, unwilling to hope. If she is immortal again, then there is a chance for her to be reunited with Shirou, even if she has to wait forever. The thought is both uplifting and terrifying, and Arturia is too tired to properly consider all the implications, so she sets the idea aside to focus on her laundry.
Arturia senses someone approach, but does not sense any malice, so she does not look up until the woman standing beside her clears her throat nervously. As soon as their eyes meet, the woman gulps and looks aside.
"Ah! M'lord, we'd be honored to clean that f'you! Please, let us do this." Arturia considers it briefly, then nods her assent. As soon as she does, the woman bends and folds the surcoat efficiently over her arm, then hurries back to the other villagers, and immediately begins scrubbing it against a washboard. Arturia nods again, this time to herself, satisfied that her clothing will be properly cleaned, and sits back to listen to the children play while she watches the sun set.
The only warning she has of any danger is the clatter of the armor she had spread out to dry. If she had not heard the noise, or if she were to fail to react, she would be fine. However, startled by the sound and wondering why she did not sense the attack, she begins to leap to her feet, reaching for her sword, just in time for a pair of tumbling children to crash into her legs, knocking her face-first into the stream.
Arturia sputters and pushes herself up out of the water. It is not deep enough for her to even be entirely submerged in, but it is deep enough for water to fill her open mouth, causing her to choke. She sits up, coughing, and turns to glare at the children who collided with her. They are standing motionless, and one of the women, most likely their mother, is running toward them, holding her skirts up to her knees.
Arturia stands and shakes the water off as best she can, sighing, as she waits for the children's mother to catch her breath. The woman starts speaking before she finishes controlling her breathing, her words interrupted by pants for air.
"Please, m'lord," she gasps, dropping to her knees in front of her, "they're only children! Please forgive them!"
"It is forgiven. Children are children, after all." Arturia pinches the bridge of her nose, fighting her growing headache. The peasants' continued assumptions that she'll punish them for the slightest thing irritate her far more than being knocked into the stream. She wonders who the local lord is, that the peasants here have developed the habit of begging forgiveness for everything.
"Thank you, m'lord!" The woman climbs back to her feet. "If it'd not trouble you, you can have'em as servants while you're here, m'lord." The woman's brows furrow, and she peers at Arturia's dripping form. "Oh! I'm sorry, m'lady!"
Arturia freezes. The woman continues talking, but she does not hear it. Her sex has been discovered. Her mind refuses to work. This is something she spent most of her life fearing. Her authority as king was derived from the fear and respect of her people, not their love for her. If they had discovered she was a woman, she would have lost their respect, and most likely her right to rule.
Forcibly, she reminds herself that she is no longer king, and it will not destroy the country if her true sex is revealed. That thought calms her, and her mind begins to move again.
'Although I do not have to worry about the kingdom, whatever respect I may have had as a knight will most likely be lost,' she thinks, somewhat bitterly. Many times during her life, she had thought 'If only I was born a man' or 'I wish I was not a woman,' but now, she cannot bring herself to think that. It is because Arturia was born a woman that she was able to find love with Shirou. She feels her face heating at the thought, and turns away from the woman and her children.
"Please bring my things to the village. I will come to collect them shortly." She does not wait for the peasant's response, because she does not want to hear "m'lady" directed at her. It is too foreign for her to find it comfortable. Instead, leaving the confused villagers behind her, she jogs away along the bank of the stream, letting the passing air cool her face and dry her clothes.
~~~CotD~~~
The sun is just beginning to touch the distant hills when Arturia returns to the village. What had started as running from the source of her embarrassment had quickly turned into a relaxing walk along the stream, and then through the fields back to the village. By the time she arrives, she has stopped worrying about the consequences of her sex being known, and hoping that the villagers will be able to spare her a meal and a place to rest for the night.
She has determined that tomorrow morning, she will pay a visit to the local gentry and investigate his governance. It seems to her to be a suitable place to begin her new protection of the people of Britain, and as she walks into the village, her plans for tomorrow fill her with anticipation.
The leader of the village meets Arturia in the open center, with a crowd of what must be most of the adults from the area behind him. She raises her hand in greeting as she walks to comfortable speaking distance, noting that the corpses from the fight earlier that evening are gone, and the blood has been mostly washed away.
The man steps forward to meet Arturia. "Welcome, m'lady," he greets her, and answers her wonderings over whether the woman at the stream told her friends what she had seen. "We've your armor and your coat for you." He gestures, and three men separate themselves from the crowd, carrying the pieces of her armor. Behind them, Arturia recognizes the woman who took her surcoat, following nervously. Arturia smiles at them gratefully.
"You can stack those here for now."
"Beggin' your pardon, m'lady, but what're you planning to do now?" the representative of the peasants asks her, wringing his hands.
"Tomorrow, I would like to speak to the steward of these lands. Who is he, and where does he reside?" She is pleased the man asked her for her plans; it allows her to skip pleasantries and request the information he needs.
"His lordship's manor's a few miles west past the washin' spot, and a little bit north," he responds immediately, then pauses. "If you're wantin' to tell him about the fight earlier, m'lady, we can send someone to tell'm."
Arturia nods slowly. "I will certainly inform him about this, but I also have some questions for him," she states firmly. The crowd of peasants mutters uneasily at that.
"Questions, m'lady? About this village, m'lady? We can answer those, m'lady." The man's voice is uneven, and he shifts his weight nervously.
"Some of my concerns are about this village, but that is not all I wish to speak with him about." She narrows her eyes at him. "Why does this upset you?"
In response, the man drops to his knees in front of her. "Please, m'lady, I beg of you! Don't bring trouble to our village!" He claps his hands to his mouth, realizing too late that he has said something most noblemen of Britain would consider unforgivable from a peasant.
"What do you mean?" Arturia ignores the offense, pressing instead for more information. However, the man just shakes his head, eyes wide. Arturia turns her attention to the crowd behind him.
"Will any of you tell me? Why are you afraid that I will meet your lord?" The gathered villagers press back away from her without answering her question.
"Please, m'lady, don't concern yourself with us," the man in front of her says, having found his voice again.
"It is already my concern," Arturia responds immediately. "If he is not ruling properly, it is my responsibility to correct him." Even though she is no longer king, Arturia still feels responsible. The reason is because he most likely gained the governance of this fiefdom under her rule. If he is a poor governor, the responsibility for putting him in the position lays with her.
"Responsibility?" the village spokesman says slowly. "M'lady, did you say, earlier, that you're King Arthur?" His face is skeptical, but with a hint of hope. In response to that, Arturia carefully shapes her face into an expressionless mask.
Telling them that she is King Arthur is out of the question. The people of Britain will not accept a queen, or even a female king, as their ruler, and even the slightest rumor that King Arthur was a woman would undermine the authority of her throne, and the effectiveness of whoever inherits it from her. Obviously, she should lie, and tell them that it was a ruse to fool the thieves. However, her pride as a knight will not permit that, so she is paralyzed by indecision, and her silence drags on.
"She saved the village, didn't she?" A voice from the crowd breaks the quiet, and with that signal, a dozen voices speak up at once, and an argument breaks out.
"Aye, she did! Maybe she can do it again!"
"Maybe she can save us from His Lordship!"
"Idiot! Once she leaves, he'll just send his men for revenge."
"She can protect us!"
"Lord Alric is too strong for some noblewoman with a sword to protect us from!"
"Remember what 'e did to the last ones who complained, eh?"
At the very least, the argument confirms Arturia's suspicions that this Lord Alric has been abusing the people he is supposed to protect. Despite their leader's attempts to quiet them, the people continue arguing, moving to separate into two distinct groups.
"She did say she was King Arthur, 'idn't she?"
"No, she just said she had his authority."
"Maybe she was lying!
Arturia's eyebrow twitches, and she stalks to where her armor is piled and pulls out her greaves, kneeling to begin fastening them on.
"Why would she do that?"
"Maybe she wanted to us to give her what she would've had to steal otherwise?"
"That's stupid, why'd she fight the other robbers then?"
"She didn't want to share?"
Arturia finishes with her greaves, and begins donning her breastplate, trying her best to ignore the increasingly insulting speculation from the peasants.
"How'd a small girl like her beat three men, anyway?"
"She's strong! Didn't you see her swinging that sword?"
"Strong? That's unnatural, it is! She's a sorceress, I say!"
"ENOUGH!"
Arturia's bellow accomplishes what the pleadings of the spokesman could not, and suppresses the impending brawl. The crowd falls silent. She stands, tightens the last buckle on her gauntlets, and takes a deep breath before speaking again.
"Enough." She repeats. This time, her tone is friendly, and her smile is cold. "Your accusations of lies and sorcery impinge on my honor as a knight. I will forgive you this, but I will leave you to deal with your Lord Alric on your own." She slings Avalon over her shoulder and turns to leave.
"So this is all the gratitude and honor of the people of Britain is worth." Arturia bites off her next words before speaking them. She forcibly suppresses her anger, reminding herself that it would be unseemly of her to take out her feelings about the actions of a country on the peasants who are at best a small part of it. She walks out of the village, holding her dignity and pride about herself as a cloak to hide the roiling anger, disgust, and pain of betrayal within her.
Exhaustion from the events of the long day renders her facade fragile. Her control slips when a thrown stone bounces off her armor with a ping, and she can no longer ignore the voices of the people behind her.
"Go on, witch! Get out of our-!"
The voices cut off, silenced by the glimmer of bared steel in the fading light. Arturia spun and drew her sword before the rock reached the ground, but now stares, aghast, at the weapon in her hand.
'I drew my sword on unarmed peasants.' Her thoughts are shocked, and distantly, she wonders just how strongly she resents her treatment. Slamming the sword back into its sheath, she turns again and runs toward the forest.
~~~CotD~~~
Arturia runs until she reaches the forest, out of sight of the village and the people there. She does not think as she runs, overwhelmed with emotions as she has not been since she was a child. Her eyes burn with tears, and her hands are clenched into fists. She forces herself to focus as she reaches the forest, in order to search for the tree she marked to indicate the location of her supply cache. Searching for the tree she provides her a brief distraction, enough to allow her to regain control of her emotions. As she walks into the forest with her meager supplies, she struggles to maintain that control, directing her attention to picking her way through the forest in the fading light. The sun has fully set, and the last glimmers of twilight barely lift the gloom under the forest canopy. Her reflexes and luck are all that allow her to continue walking through the dark forest in the fading light.
Her awareness of time is vague as she walks. She pays little attention to where she is going, save that she travels generally away from where she was. Finally, physically and mentally exhausted, Arturia trips over a root and stumbles into the tree trunk. She looks around, but the darkness is nearly absolute. Accepting that she cannot continue to travel while she cannot see, she sets down her bags and sits against the tree, pulling Avalon around her body to rest across her lap as she does so.
'I should sleep.' That thought is clear, but she feels no desire to sleep. More than sleep, what she desires is to unravel her tangled emotions. She directs her attention inward, trying to regain some of the detachment she had when she was king.
Her strongest feeling is her anger at the people of Briton, fueled by the pain of her rejection by the people she protected, followed by shame that she had hated them. Her betrayal by her knights, culminating in open rebellion against her, and her betrayal by the people of the village she just fled, who rejected her sincere desire to protect them, blurred together in her mind until she felt betrayed by Briton itself.
'Briton has neither use for me as a king nor as a knight, it seems,' she thinks bitterly. 'And yet, what am I? I have always been a knight, and the king of knights. I protected Briton and its people as best I knew how.'
She wonders how she can continue to protect Briton, but that thought leads her to wonder if she wants to protect Briton. Uncomfortably, she realizes the answer is not as simple as it used to be. When she was a child, her only wish was to protect the country and its people. As the king, it was her duty to protect the country and its people. But now, without that duty, and weighed down by her trials of the last week of her reign and the past day, she cannot honestly claim that it is her only wish to continue to protect. Nor, with the cynicism born from recent experience, can she wholeheartedly believe that the people wish to be protected.
'What is it that I wish to protect? What does it mean to protect?'
These questions weigh on her mind. She no longer doubts that drawing the sword from the stone was the correct course of action. Briton needed a warrior king who would do what was necessary to protect the country. Even if that king was not what the people of Briton wanted, she had been the king the country needed. The irony is not lost on her, and she understands now, as she did not when she first assumed the throne, why the end Merlin showed her was inevitable. With that understanding comes a sense of peace. Had she insisted on protecting the village, the result would have been the same: resentment would build and fester, and eventually they would have rejected her.
'"King Arthur does not understand human emotions," was it?' She stares at the shadows of the leaves above her head. 'Yes, certainly that was true. But if I had not thrown away my emotions, I would not have been able to be the king.'
Arturia slides away from the tree and leans back, using her bags as a pillow. 'What I wish for is not to protect people who have no desire or need protecting. I think-' her thoughts are interrupted by a yawn '-think that I should learn to understand people before trying to protect them. Perhaps I shall set aside my sword for a time.'
'Yes,' she thinks, as she drifts to sleep, 'it may be nice to live as a normal person for a time.'
~~~CotD~~~
Arturia is woken gradually by the warmth of sunlight on her face. She sits up slowly, yawning and rubbing her eyes. The forest around her is lit by bright beams of sunlight penetrating the leaf canopy, and the air is warm. With a start, she realizes that it well past sunrise and she shakes her head to dispel the remaining lassitude of sleep.
She feels no unease about sleeping late. For what may be the first time in her life, and what certainly is the first time she can recall, she has nowhere to be and no demands on her time. The feeling of aimlessness is unfamiliar to her, and makes her somewhat uneasy. However, she thinks the uneasiness is more than compensated for by the comfortable freedom she feels.
The freedom from responsibility is also new to Arturia. This morning, there is nobody depending on her to save them, and nobody she wants to save. She leans back, resting her hands on the ground behind her, and watches the leaves blow in the wind. This is an experience for her to savor, and she feels no urgency in moving.
While basking in the tranquility of the forest, she lets her thoughts drift to the future. As comfortable as she is, she knows she cannot stay here forever no matter how much she might wish to. For the present time she has food, and the weather is fair, but neither of those will last. Furthermore, she has no desire to become a hermit.
Arturia contemplates the choice before her. She will have to rejoin human civilization eventually, although she is strongly tempted to avoid it as much as possible. She does not worry for her safety wandering Britain alone; she is a skilled knight, and she has Avalon to protect her.
"Arturia Pendragon, wandering knight, righter of wrongs and protector of the innocent!" She says it out loud, and laughs to herself. 'It sounds like something from a tale.' The idea does appeal to her, but she remembers her last thoughts from the night before. She cannot learn to understand people by living as some sort of wandering hero. She sets the thought aside, thinking that she may try it in the future.
Her next thought is to return to Camelot, but she quickly discards it. She is too recognizable, and Sir Bedivere has most likely reported her death already. Furthermore, she does not think she could bear to be near the people she knew without speaking to them. Even now, thinking about her only friends at Camelot, her heart aches to return to them. Her two close friends, who even now, are most likely mourning her death.
"Guinevere... Lancelot..." She recalls the pain of having to order Guinevere burned at the stake and her relief when Lancelot rescued her, tempered with guilt that she had made it necessary for him to fight his comrades. Happy memories and sad memories flow through her mind, and she realizes suddenly she is crying. The most heartbreaking memory of all is not even one from her life. Lancelot has not yet experienced it, but she remembers vividly how he died in her arms after telling her that he had wished she would condemn him and demand penance of him so that he could atone for his transgressions.
She falls backward and takes a deep, calming breath. She cannot go to them, no matter how much she wants to. She cannot tell Lancelot that he could atone by protecting Guenivere for his entire life, nor can she apologize to Guenivere for ordering her execution.
"You can't redo the past. What's done cannot be redone. This path... I don't believe it's the wrong one." She recites these words, Shirou's words, to herself as if they were a spell. At that time, she rejected her wish to obtain the grail, and chose to accept the past, no matter how painful it was. So she lies on the ground in the forest and mourns for her lost friends, even if they do not know they are lost yet. Eventually, the tears stop, and she becomes aware that she is hungry.
She climbs to her feet, groaning and stretching. Sleeping in her armor is never comfortable, but she was too tired to remove it last night, and is now paying the price in stiffness and sore spots. With a grimace, she bends over to pick through her bags for breakfast. The condition of the food is not much changed for having been used as a pillow, but she does not find that a strong indicator of quality in food.
Finally settling on a hunk of sharp cheese and a loaf of significantly overbaked bread, she slings the bags across her shoulders and shakes herself to settle her armor into place. Bread in one hand and cheese in the other, she sets off, intending to eat while she walks. She stops after three steps and looks around curiously. There are no landmarks visible within the forest, and she does not remember exactly where she wandered to last night, nor has she yet decided where is going to.
"I cannot return to Camelot," she mutters to herself through a mouthful of bread. It would be best, she thinks, to keep her distance from her court, at least until enough time has passed that her face has been forgotten. With that in mind, she turns southwest and walks onward through the forest.
~~~CotD~~~
Arturia sighs with relief as she stumbles over the crest of the hill. There is a town visible along the road she is on, and a steady flow of traffic toward it on other roads. The road she walks is deserted, with nothing within several days of steady walking behind her. She leans heavily on her staff, cut from a sturdy tree before she left the forest, as she steps to the side of the road to catch her breath. She had lost some food to spoilage and the last of her supplies became breakfast two days ago. Walking without food has been trying. She pushes herself back into motion, carefully setting her feet with each step as she descends the slope. As she walks, she squints into the distance to assess the walk ahead of her. The town is either very large, or not very distant, and she estimates that it is only another two hours' walk. She nods to herself in satisfaction. She will almost certainly reach the town by noon, which means she will be able to at least beg a meal as a traveler. Her pride rebels at the prospect of relying on charity, but her stomach rebels at the prospect of a day entirely without food. She walks faster.
She stops for rest again after another hour of walking, leaning heavily on her staff.
'Quite the sight I must be,' she scoffs to herself. 'A knight in dusty armor who cannot even stand unaided.' She sits, and takes a wineskin from her belt. Shaking it yields a slight sloshing, and she puts it to her lips. She swallows twice, then puts it into the bag with the rest of the empty skins.
'I hope this is far enough. I cannot travel further without food.' She considers her current situation carefully. She has traveled for three days south and west of the battlefield, the first of those days through forest and wilderness. The day before yesterday, she encountered a road, and followed it south for the rest of that day, and the next, until it intersected a road going west at a traveler's inn. The inn was a simple one-room structure with a hearth and a large pot of stew simmering. She had claimed herself a meal by virtue of her station, and the man tending the pot had indicated that there was a town another half day's hard travel to the west. She had reluctantly decided to spend the night, and had retired at sunset. She spent sleeping lightly in a corner near the hearth with her sword in her hand, uneasy with the presence of so many strangers, and rose early and poorly-rested the next day to resume her journey. Now she was glad that she had, for she would arrive in a more timely fashion today.
She had considered what do when she arrived while she traveled. Certainly, she could use her obvious status as a knight to command room and board for however long she wished to stay, and most likely she would be given the services of a child as an untrained page, as well. However, that idea reminded her of the mercenaries turned thieves, and it was also what King Arthur would have done. Therefore, Arturia rejected it as unsuitable to her purposes.
Instead, she had decided to leave her armor and weapons, and her surcoat, which someone might recognize as bearing the coat of arms of the king of the Britons, behind her when she reached the town, and present herself as a refugee from the civil war. It was not exactly the truth, but it was close enough to soothe her conscience. That she would disguise her gender and resume the charade of being a man was something she assumed before she began planning. An unmarried young woman traveling alone would draw far too much suspicion.
Arturia considered the road ahead of her before standing. Two larger roads joined it between here and the town proper, and she would need to be rid of her possessions before she reached the first one. She looked around, searching for somewhere to hide her armor. The first road joined hers about a quarter of the way to her destination, and cultivated fields surrounded it on both sides, extending toward her. She would reach them quickly when she resumed her journey.
To the south, another hill blocked her vision, and she saw no likely hiding places. To the north, however, there are small stands of trees scattered across the moor. Settling on these as the most likely hiding places, and comforting herself with the knowledge that it will only be temporary, one way or another, she levers herself to her feet and heads for the nearest grove.
The first three clumps of trees she checks yield no suitable hiding places. The trees are small, and the ground is firm. Arturia lacks the tools for digging, so her hope is to find a tree of suitable size to conceal her equipment. The fourth grove she visits rewards her efforts. There are three trees with trunks thick enough to climb, branches sturdy enough to hold her armor, and dense enough foliage to conceal it. She quickly removes her armor and surcoat, and circles the trees, looking for the best approach to climb them.
Wistfully, she recalls climbing trees with her foster brothers before she took Caliburn from the stone and gave up her childhood. She had always been the most agile, and being the lightest, she could safely climb higher than any of the boys. The growling of her stomach reminds her that now is not the time to be caught in reminiscences. She jumps for the lowest branch she judges able to support her weight, and pulls herself up. She quickly climbs her height again above that branch, and drops back down to the branch and then the ground, disappointed with what she found.
Her exploration of the second tree finds a suitable hiding place: a fork, over twice her height above the ground, where the trunk splits in three. Satisfied, Arturia returns to the ground and retrieves her armor. She holds her breastplate and looks up at the tree she chose, considering. Her armor is heavy and too bulky to carry up the tree. She worries that, even concealed in the leaves, a stray reflection will give away its presence.
She looks around, considering her options. She does not want to dull the metal with dirt and mud, although she will if she must. However, she does not know if she will be able to clean it properly, and does not want to risk rust. Finally, she sighs, and dumps the empty wineskins and crumbs of food out of her saddlebags. She packs her greaves and gauntlets into the bags, divided to equalize the weight, then sets them across her shoulders and makes her way back up the tree to drape the saddlebags over a branch at the fork.
Back on the ground, Arturia carefully wraps her breastplate, sword, and Avalon in her surcoat. She lets go of Avalon reluctantly, and ties the edges of the surcoat closed as best she can. Carefully, she lifts the awkward bundle and works her way back up the tree, pushing it ahead of her. She is covered in sweat, leaves, and bits of bark by the time she lodges it firmly into the fork of the tree and clambers back to the ground. She brushes off the worst of the grime, but her once-white pants and tunic have smeared to a dirty brown. She shrugs, resigned.
'It will help me blend in,' she comforts herself.
Arturia bends to pick up her staff, fighting the dizziness that accompanies the action. Her hands tighten, white-knuckled. The exertion of hiding her arms and armor, piled upon her hunger and her still-recovering body has left her feeling weaker than she is comfortable with, and the fact that she is now unarmed but for a simple wooden staff does not reassure her. Grimacing, she renews her resolve and crouches to collect the wineskins. She cannot bring them all with her, but it would not be out of place to bring one or two. She does not wish to leave them here in case of the unlikely event that another traveler should come by and investigate their presence. Carrying her collection in one hand and her staff in the other, Arturia begins walking back to the previous copse of trees. She glances back over her shoulder at her hidden armor as she walks. 'It is not perfect, but it will do. I will be back for it in day or two, however things work out in this town.'
Arturia drops her burden and sits to rest while she picks out the plainest of the wineskins that are still in good condition. After settling on her choices, she leaves the rest under a tree. 'Ah, I almost forgot.' She shakes her head, dismayed with the absentmindedness her exhaustion has brought. Kneeling, she cuts the leather strap off of one with her knife, then splits it lengthwise. She ties one of the resulting strips around her wrist, then carefully undoes her hair and shakes it out, combing her fingers through it to remove the detritus from her tree climbing. Using the other leather strip, she ties her hair, including her bangs, back in a simple ponytail. She knows the length will draw some attention, but not as much as the complex bun favored by the knights at Camelot.
She collects pebbles and small stones as she walks back to the road. When she reaches the road, she builds two small cairns, little more than a tiny pile each. They are barely visible in the grass, but the line between the two points to the trees where her armor is hidden. Satisfied, she turns her attention back to her destination. Clad in her dirty pants and tunic, covered in drying sweat, with her hair undone, and carrying two empty drinkskins and a raw wood staff, Arturia judges herself sufficiently disguised to enter the town. Satisfied, she returns to the road, walking as fast as she is able, and thinks eagerly of the hot meal she hopes to eat when she arrives.
~~~CotD~~~
Arturia accompanies the travelers she has walked with for the past hour to the town inn. The town is large and prosperous as towns go, with a cobbled square and cut stone buildings at its core. The people who inhabit it seem cheerful, and Arturia is pleased to see laughing children and smiling faces around her. This, she thinks, is what she fought to protect as King Arthur, and she is proud that she has protected it. Unfortunately, she is afraid the news carried by the men she is walking with will dampen the good cheer of the townsfolk.
Two of the men are farmers, a father and his son bringing fresh vegetables to the town market in small carts pulled behind them. The third is a traveling tinker, and carries his tools and some pots in a pack on his back. His is the news that made Arturia forget her hunger when she heard it. She talked with the three men as they walked together, exchanging news. She was careful to keep her comments on what her companions are calling the Battle of Camlann noncommittal, but from the rumors the tinker related, it seems that word has spread already. She recalls his tale with a frown.
"King Arthur is dead, they say!" the tinker said bitterly, gesturing wildly with his staff and causing the farmer closer to his side to curse at him. His tools and pots clattered on his pack. "They say he fell at Camlann, but slew the rebel Mordred! I heard there were only a few survivors from both armies. Word is, the court at Camelot is dissolving, and who knows who the next king'll be. What do y'think of that?"
The younger of the two farmers, walking at the side of the road, did not answer, and he did not look at the tinker, but the way that he kept letting go of one of his cart handle to swing his arm broadly as he walked made Arturia think that he was imagining the battle. From his expression, she judged he was not imagining it accurately. His father, though, perhaps more cynical, spat to side of the road.
"I think we'll be in for some hard years. Who's t'keep order now? W'thout a king, we're t'be seein' the lords feudin' again', like it used t'be." He reached out and swatted his son on the head. "Quit yer dreamin', boy. Ain't nothin' glorious about war. Y've never seen a battlefield. 'S just blood 'n' corpses. The soldiers die and the peasants suffer. We'll be lucky t'see our farm burnt only once, y'hear!" He turned his head to address Arturia, who was walking behind and between him and the tinker. "What 'bout you, lad? What's yer story?"
"Ah..." Arturia was not expecting to be spoken to, and flailed for her story. "My family and my home were destroyed by the battle. I survived, but as you see..." She trailed off and gestured at self-deprecatingly at herself. "I am hoping to make a new start here."
"Issat so?" The farmer looked her over pityingly. Arturia did her best to look nonthreatening, and from the way he nodded, she must have succeeded. "Well, you can't be much older than my idiot here-" He poked his son sharply in the ribs. The boy stopped waving an imaginary sword and sheepishly returned his grip to his cart. "-so if you come t' the tavern in town, I'll see that yer fed, at least. Caelin at the tavern knows me; he'll feed you if I ask'm to."
Arturia blushed and stammered a denial. "I, that is... Thank you, sir, but I cannot impose upon your generosity. I am not that hungry."
The farmer laughed and waved off her excuses. "Nonsense, lad. I can see the way yer lookin' at my cart. You can pay me back by entertainin' us with yer story 'til we get there!"
Arturia had bowed to his persistence and her hunger, and had taken the opportunity to practice her story. They had evidenced no doubt of her claim of being the bastard son of a minor knight who had been raised in his youth by his father, but sent away to live with his mother when his father's legitimate heir questioned his position. She told them that her mother's village had been destroyed in the fighting, and that her father almost certainly died at Camlann. She claimed no particular trade or skills. She was not certain what skills she could claim mastery of, other than the knightly arts, or the matters of ruling, and she doubted there was much demand for either of those in this town.
She brings her mind back to the present as the elder farmer leads her into the front of the inn. He leaves his son with their produce in the town square, and the boy reluctantly pulls the carts out of the way and sits to watch them. The man greets the innkeeper as they enter the building.
"Ho, Caelin! Is dinner ready yet?"
The portly man, busy at the hearth, turns around, his face lighting up in a huge grin.
"Cearl! I just sent Eni to the baker's; he should be back soon. You made good time this week! Did you leave that lazy son of yours home?"
"Hah!" The farmer, Cearl, barks out a laugh. "The brat's outside watchin' the carts, if he's not too busy pretendin' he's a knight o' the Round Table t' do the job. Not that there's gonna be any more of them."
"So I've heard. You any more news? And dinner for two, then?" Caelin scoops two bowls of porridge from the pot at the hearth and sets them on top of the mantle.
"Nay, three. I've picked up a stray, here." He reaches out and pulls Arturia forward as he steps forward to pick up the bowls. "The lad here's lookin' for a place to settle. Lost his ma an' pa in the fightin'. He could do with a feedin'; he was lookin' at our carts like he hadn't eaten in days!" He laughs again, and Arturia blushes furiously when her stomach growls as the smell of the porridge reaches her.
"I, um..." She fights down her embarrassment. "Thank you for your kindness. I will surely repay you."
"Don't worry about it, lad. You'll pay me back when you find yourself a place here, or you'll work it off before you leave." Caelin fills another bowl and hands it to her, then speaks over her shoulder.
"Eni! Bring that bread over here, then run and fetch Sigbert! Tell him we've got someone looking to settle." He turns back to Arturia. "Sigbert's an artificer, and the oldest man in the region. He's as close to a leader as we've got here. Welcome to Trekern, by the way." He takes the basket of steaming bread from the boy carrying it, who looks up at Arturia with wide eyes as he hurries back out the door. "Here you are, Cearl!" He rips a loaf of bread in half and sticks half in each bowl the farmer carries.
"Thanks, Caelin. You can pick up yer vegetables later, or we'll drop 'em off if you don't come by." He nods to Arturia as he leaves. "Best of luck, lad."
The innkeeper tears another loaf in half and hands half to Arturia. He juggles the other half while he scoops himself a bowl. "You can have a seat if you like." He nods to the benches and tables by the walls. "Sigbert'll be here soon enough. He'll be in his workshop this time of day, and Eni know's where to find him. Eni's my son, by the way. Eleven years old, and he'll be apprenticing to the ostler when he turns twelve next year. Go on, sit down and eat." He nudges Arturia with his elbow, and she makes her way to the tables in a daze. "You have a name, lad?" Caelin asks as he turns back to his cooking.
"Ah? Arthur. My name is Arthur." Arturia feels disoriented by the warm hospitality of the people here, so different from the wary obedience she has always received as a knight and as a king. 'Is this how people normally interact?' she wonders as she dips her bread into her porridge and bites into it. She suppresses a grimace. The food is solid fare, and of good quality, but her time as a servant has spoiled her. 'Will I be reminded of Shirou every time I eat?' She finds the prospect bittersweet. Her eyes widen with a sudden realization. 'This hospitality is like Shirou's! He never treated me as a king, a knight, or a Servant. Sakura and Taiga, too. Even Rin treated me with more familiarity than my court, even though we were technically enemies...' She continues to eat mechanically, willingly indulging in nostalgia.
The sense of someone sitting down next to her brings back her wandering thoughts, and she turns to see who is there.
"So, your name is Arthur, is it? I hear you're interested in settling in our town." The man beside her is old, with graying hair and a deeply lined face. She nods in response to his question, hurriedly swallowing the food in her mouth. "My name is Sigbert. They call me an artificer, but mostly, I just solve problems. Why don't you tell me a bit about yourself, and we'll see if we can't find a place for you here in Trekern."
"Yes, please." Arturia repeats the story she told the farmers and the tinker earlier. As she finishes, Sigbert nods to himself.
"If you know how to use a sword, you could probably hire yourself out as a solider of some sort, and there is never any shortage of demand for manual labor around here. However, I think I have a better idea." He smiles at the obvious relief on Arturia's face. "From your speech, it sounds as though you are educated; is that right? Can you read and write, and figure sums?"
"Yes, that is correct. I may be a bit out of practice with those skills, but I certainly know how."
"Very good. To be honest, Arthur, your presence here is a bit of good fortune for the town. Ubric, our scribe died this spring, and we've been in a fix since. He came down with a cough last winter, and it just got worse and worse, until he died of it..." Sigbert trails off, frowning, and clears his throat. "Now, traveling scribes come by once in a while, but we get enough work for a scribe here to keep one busy. Do you think you're up for the job? It involves a bit of reading and writing, and a certain amount of discretion."
Arturia nods slowly. "I am willing to try. I am confident I can be sufficiently discrete, and this appeals to me a great deal more than working as a mercenary or an unskilled laborer. I would like to accept. However, I lack the necessary tools..." She trails off, disappointed.
"Ah..." Sigbert seems embarrassed. "If that's all that's standing in your way, don't worry. The job comes with supplies. Actually, it may come with a good bit else. The town provides the scribe with room and board as payment for handling certain duties. If someone wants something extra, they'll trade you for your services. Also, Ubric had no relatives here, so... Well, if you take the job, you'll have as good a claim as any on his possessions." He notes the appalled look on her face. "Well, you don't have to take claim anything you don't want to, but you'll be able to trade anything you don't want for things you need."
Sigbert stands up and holds out his hand with a smile. "Come with me. I'll show you to the room, and I'll explain more as we walk." Hesitantly returning his smile and with growing hope, Arturia lets him help her to her feet and follows him out of the inn.
~~~CotD~~~
Arturia flops backward onto the pallet in her new room with a sigh of relief. The straw is fresh and plentiful, and it is a softer bed than she has had since the battle at Camlann, or for a long time before that, if she discounts her time as a servant. She stretches, trying to work out the kinks in her shoulders and neck. Overall, she is satisfied with what she has found here. The former resident, Ubric, kept the tools of his trade meticulously neat, and the rest of his possessions in disorderly piles.
When Sigbert had first shown her the room, it had first seemed to be a storage closet to her eyes. It was a small room built into to the back of the inn, which she had discovered was the largest stone building in the town of Trekern, and the floor was completely covered in junk. The only remotely orderly spaces were the sleeping pallet opposite the door, and the work space to the right of the door containing a small table and a sturdy-looking wooden chest. The room was lit by a small window of bubbly glass to the side of the door, over the table. Arturia wondered why the scribe's room was attached to the inn, but had not had a chance to ask Sigbert before he took his leave.
While she had sorted through the mess on the floor, her mind sorted through through Sigbert's hurried introduction to her job. They had not had much time to talk during the short walk, and Sigbert had hurried off when they arrived, promising to send someone to show her around town the next day, and to explain her duties, which he had summarized as "spend the day available in the town square, reading what people ask you to read, writing what they ask you to write, and occasionally negotiating payments." He had also instructed her to see if the writing materials were still usable by tomorrow.
Arturia had spent the afternoon sorting through Ubric's remaining possessions. Most of his clothes she found to be in good quality, although much too large for her. She sorted the best and smallest out to keep, and left the rest piled in the corner by the door. She was willing to alter them herself if she had to, but hoped she could barter with someone more talented with a needle for their services. She happily noted that although he did not have a mattress, he did have sturdy linens covering the pallet, and a fine, feather-stuffed pillow.
The fact that her predecessor died of illness brings to mind a new danger. She is confident, but not entirely sure, that Avalon will protect her from sickness. As she thought about it, she realized with some horror that most of what she knows about disease does not originate from her life. Instead, it seems to have been granted to her when she was summoned as a Servant as a part of the information magically given to let the heroic spirits function in an unfamiliar time period.
What remained after Arturia finished with the clothes and utensils are the necessities of a scribe, and it was those she last examined in the growing twilight. What she found was a treasure: a well-kept lap desk, stacks of fine parchment and rough paper wrapped neatly in oilcloth, and a large block of dried ink and an inkwell. Within the chest she found many small bundles of papers, which a cursory examination showed to be records, contracts, and other important documents of the townsfolk, organized by some system she can not immediately discern. This discovery answered her questions about the strange location for the scribe's quarters. The stone inn is the safest place from fire in the town.
She returned to her makeshift pallet satisfied with her new home and circumstances. No matter how slovenly the man may have been in his personal life, he kept the tools of his trade with great care, and she will be proud to inherit them.
Now, Arturia sits comfortably to rest and wait for darkness.