Chapter 82
Saber woke up to the sound of someone knocking on the door. The sunlight streamed through the shoji screen doors, illuminating the shadow of the figure standing in front of them.
"Saber, are you awake yet?"
Caster's voice burrowed into her mind through the walls of sleepiness, snapping her mind to an alert state in seconds. Sitting upright on the futon, she blinked twice, gathering her thoughts, then stood up to answer the door.
"Good Morning, Caster. What is it?"
Caster gestured towards the meditation room that doubled as a dining hall.
"Good Morning Saber. Emiya-san told me to wake you up for breakfast."
"I see. You have my thanks."
Saber folded the futons and put them away, then followed Caster to the dining hall. After walking in silence for a while, Caster suddenly asked her.
"How was your world like?"
"Hm? My world?"
Caster nodded.
"The timeline you came from. After all, even though we're the same person, we also came from different universes. The only thing that connects us is the Throne of Heroes, and the fact that we were summoned into this war together. If you don't mind, I'd like to learn about you and your history."
After discovering that almost all the Servants in the war were Artorias, she was curious about what made them into the Servants they were today, allowing them to qualify for a myriad of classes that shouldn't even be compatible. Some were obviously from very different parallel universes, such as Berserker and Assassin, who wielded weapons far from the norm of what they could comprehend. Others however, were closer to each other, yet still so different. Rider was also a special case, since she wore and used modern clothes and tools, but Saber could tell her roots were not so different from herself. Her appearance and weapons were most likely simply the result of her summoning and class, instead of her history and legend.
It probably wouldn't hurt to tell Caster about herself, and besides she was also curious about Caster as well.
"I was born as the daughter of Uther Pendragon, King of Britain, and Igraine, the wife of the Duke of Cornwall. Immediately after being born, I was placed under the care of Merlin, and the wizard let Sir Ector raise me as a foster son."
"Hoh, so it's like that huh."
Caster's noncommittal response made Saber wonder if she was saying that she was the same, or if their origins were different. She'd know later when she asked Caster about her own.
"I grew up with Sir Ector as my father, and Kay as my brother. The days before I became a king were-peaceful, I suppose."
Despite being the king who showed no emotions, she couldn't hide the small smile that crept on her lips when she remembered the days spent under her father and her brother.
She had constantly trained since birth, swinging a weighted wooden practice sword until her arms felt like they would fall off, but she had persisted every day. Even though no one told her, she herself believed that she needed to become a king, for "only a king can save a ruined country headed for death". Her resolve prepared all her life for the moment she drew the sword, the determination to abandon her humanity to save Britain.
But training wasn't the only thing she had back then.
Almost every day, her brother was there in front of her, sparring against her wooden sword diligently. Although he didn't accompany her all the time, it was a fact that he would take some time daily to train with her. Her father told Kay to treat her like a brother, and he did so faithfully, even while knowing that her female charms would fully manifest during her adulthood. His treatment of her was truly that of a blood related brother, to the point that when Artoria was told that they weren't blood related, she simply accepted it and continued acting like normal, joking with him, training with him, being taken care of and taking care of him when they were sick. In a sense, they were already true siblings, going beyond the bond of flesh and blood to a bond of the heart.
Once, she had fallen sick while Kay's mother, her foster mother, was away, and Sir Ector was too busy dealing with his duties. Thus, it had fallen on Kay to take care of Artoria, or Arthur. In spite of his inexperience in such matters, he had managed to do passably well, with the aid of some of the local housewives who advised him on how to clean him, the food he should eat and such. In the middle of the rainy day, he had woken up to find Kay sitting next to his bed, wringing a wet cloth in a wooden basin.
"K-Kay…"
He turned to him upon hearing his voice.
"Arthur? Ah, you're awake. How do you feel?"
Despite trying to sound unconcerned, his words were enough to express his worry.
"I, *cough*, I think I might die…"
Arthur sniffled and coughed on the bed, his cheeks and forehead a bright red. Still, his condition wasn't so bad that he actually was going to die, but Kay decided to humor him, just to make him feel better.
"You know, it would be troublesome for me if you were to die now."
Arthur groaned, then flipped onto his side, his back facing Kay.
"Unnggg...I really might die…"
Kay sighed, pulling his shoulder to get him to rest on his back again, draping the wet cloth he had finished wringing across his forehead. The cool cloth sapped some of the heat from his forehead, bringing relief to his body.
"Ahhn, thanks…"
"So do you still feel like dying?"
Kay grabbed another rag and pushed into the basin of water.
"...Yes…"
"Haahhhh...Fine, I'll do anything for you, but in exchange you'll have to get back to normal as fast as possible, alright?"
When Arthur didn't respond, he repeated his words. After the third time, he finally seemed to have heard him.
"Anything, I want…?"
Outside, the rain fell incessantly, tapping on the thatched roof and running down the densely packed plant to the ground. Occasionally, a few peals of thunder could be heard in the distance, rumbling majestically, a growling lion in the skies.
"I want…*sniff*...I want a dream…"
A dream? Was that even possible? Kay patiently waited for him to finish. Depending on the contents of the dream, he could perhaps grant his wish. His mouth stretched into a yawn, his left hand pausing in his wringing of the cloth to pinch himself. He had been here a while, and was starting to feel a bit sleepy.
"A lion...Ahchoo!"
Grabbing a rag from another basin, he gently wiped the snot off his face and blanket, dropping the dirtied rag into a pile of used cloth.
"Lion...running across the-the pla..ins"
He leaned in close to hear the last few words as his voice drifted off, getting quieter and quieter as he sank into the oblivion of sleep once more. He barely managed to catch the last word before he stopped, his snoring starting up due to the amount of mucus in his nose.
Huhhhh, a lion? A dream of a lion running across the plains? What kind of dream was that?
Kay furrowed his eyebrows in thought, wondering how he would make her see it. He did know his brother loved lions, saying they were his favourite animal ever since he saw one when he was young, but to think that he'd even ask for them in a dream.
Well, I did promise him that I'd do anything, so I'll just have to try.
He'd once overheard Merlin say that often, what people saw in their dreams was simply a reconstruction of the reality they'd seen and experienced in their lives before. Even the most outlandish landscape was formed from their memories, as the mind just couldn't visualize what they hadn't seen before. It was similar to telling a person who had never seen an elephant before to imagine what it looked like from a basic description. At best, they would be able to form a rough grasp of its appearance by comparing it to animals they'd seen before, like saying it was a massive cow with a long rope like nose, big ears and gray skin.
It was just a theory, but he maybe could do something like that to let Arthur have the dream he wanted. Like, making an object for Arthur to look at and use in his dreams.
I wonder if I can just bend some straw into the shape of a lion to do that.
That seemed to halfhearted though, even for him, so he went out of the room to fetch a knife and block of firewood. Sitting at a table, he proceeded to whittle away at the wood, bit by bit, in order to make it a majestic lion. Patiently, each cut into the wood carved a curling piece of shaving off the surface, the table gradually becoming covered with light brown wooden shavings. The sliding, sandy sound of knife cutting through wood combined with the patter of the rain was soothing, almost lulling him to sleep. His knife slipped quite a lot though, dragging across the wood to create uneven patterns.
Then halfway through, he stopped.
If a lion appears in her dreams, wouldn't it chase him?
This errant thought caught his attention, and he soon realized that it was possible. With his physical state in such a condition, the lion could become something scary that would hunt him down and eat him in his dreams, since he was so sick.
Ahhh, what should I do?
After spending some time thinking while tapping the knife against the table, he came upon a solution.
I'll just have to make the lion an old and dying one that's unable to lift a paw even against a mouse then, so that he can still see his dream, but not get eaten as well.
He carved with renewed determination, hacking away at the wood with ferocity as chips, splinters and shaving flew everywhere.
It was night by the time he was done, but he managed to create something resembling a lion. His father said nothing when he saw the pile of shavings and chips on the table, though he quickly averted his eyes after seeing Kay's finished work.
He took into Arthur's room, tapping his shoulder to wake him up.
"Here, I brought you a lion that you can take into your dreams."
Arthur weakly raised an arm, clutching the wooden carving and bringing closer to his face to look at it.
What he saw was a strange cross between a dog and a cat, with a brutishly large forelegs in contrast to the twigs serving as the hindlegs, with a misshapen body that looked more almond than anything, and an ear broken off on the head. The holes carved as eyes, ears and mouths were completely out of alignment, making it seem like a monster that appeared at night, and its tail was closer to a bunnys than a lions. There were pieces of bark still attached near the back end, and several gouged out pieces of the stomach as well.
"Kay...is this the bastard child of a dog and a cat?"
Her speech was relatively clear for the first time today, but what shocked Kay even more was her description of his carving.
"Wha? Doesn't it look like a lion at all? I spent all day carving it as a lion, and it doesn't even resemble it anywhere at all? Look, here's the fangs, here's the nose, and here's the paws…" He went on to list the various places of similarities which in Arthur's opinion, didn't exist at all. If anything, Kay had a very strong imagination.
"Ah, even though it's like this...I still appreciate it though. Thank you Kay."
Kay turned away so that he couldn't see his face.
"It wasn't much. Like I said, it would be troublesome for me if you died, so I was just doing it for myself."
Arthur smiled slightly.
"Goodnight."
She clutched the abomination to her chest and drifted off to sleep.
"Hah, didn't she hear what I just said? How troublesome."
Looking at her sleeping figure, he sighed.
"Goodnight to you too."
He left the room, his heart lighter than it had been this morning.
That night, Arthur dreamt of a pride of lions, each one of them proud and mighty, running into the setting sun on a vast plain of emerald green grass.
By the time Artoria was done with her story, she and Caster had already finished their third portion of rice for breakfast, with numerous side-dishes consumed.
"Please stop them Emiya-san, or else we'll run out of food tonight."
The monks almost fell to their knees begged him to restrain the blackholes devouring the food, the food just vanishing into their mouths as they unconsciously asked for more.
"It seems like we'll have to prepare more food for the war."
Kuzuki said in a monotone voice.
Emiya on the other hand, was exhausted from having to cook extra for the two. Their appetite was seriously absurd. It looked like they were only holding back yesterday for appearances sake, but on the second day they were immediately cutting loose, going ham with their monstrous stomachs.
"Hahh, hahhh, let's go shopping for food later, haahh."
The morning passed uneventfully, with Emiya, Kuzuki and the monks experiencing firsthand the dangers of hosting an Artoria.