A/N - I decided to slow down on updates to give you guys time to post reviews and such. I just hope my willpower will suffice this time, because the last time I tried, I just couldn't hold back from poking that 'add new chapter' button on the website. The problem with fast-fire updating is that people can get confused because of the "New Chapter" notifications and assume they already read the new chapter, leading to them skipping some chapters here and there.
~O~
"...I see. Thank you Mei." - says Rin the moment the lemurian redhead finishes explaining about the land-bound pirates in the middle of the desert.
"I did nothing, though?" - replies the redhead.
"No, no. You brought Shirou back instead of letting him charge in head first to try and rescue the pirates' hostages, that's pretty major, you know?"
"I'm right here, you know?" - Shirou deadpans while continuing to peel the onions on the kitchen counter.
"Yes, so?" - Rin looks over at him, and he's smart enough to just keep peeling.- "And so, thank you Mei."
"I think you are exaggerating, Rin." - Luvia tries to help Shirou from the side.- "Sherou properly came back to tell us and ask for our assistance, did he not?"
"I wish he had been this reasonable back in Fuyuki..." - the ravenette sighs and relaxes her posture a little bit, sitting at the table and crossing her arms over the table.- "So, I assume we can't just leave them well enough alone, right?"
"They have prisoners, Rin. Women and children, and you don't want to know what they're doing to them." - Shirou answers, his voice more than a little angry as he leaves the onions soaking in hot water and gets started on preparing the venison.
"I'll take that as a no." - comments Rin.
"To be fair, if we are going to be moving a supply caravan through the area we can't really have a full tribe of enslaving pirates just waiting to take advantage of it. I mean, we'd make too tempting a target." - Luvia throws in her two cents, and Mei nods.
"Ah~ you are right." - Rin sighs as she deflates a little, supporting her face on her arms
"Wait, you seemed to be fully against it when I proposed an assault on their base, but Luvia suggests it and you immediately agreed." - Shirou looks at her from behind the counter.
"Well, she's my girlfriend." - she gives him a cheeky smile.- "Besides, she has logical reasons for it, you just want to rish our lives to help people we didn't even know existed until you spotted them two hours ago.."
Luvia coughs softly into her fist as she tries to hide her embarrassment, though her bright flush makes it a pointless effort.
"Still, I assume we are not just going to walk over, shooting spells and swords all over the place, correct? There's a high chance they will take their prisoners as hostages and force an awful situation." - Mei seems surprisingly comfortable with how her friends can indeed, shoot spells and swords all over the place.
"Hm~" - Shirou hums while slicing the venison horizontally to make a thinner steak.
"Hm~" - Luvia hums while looking at him and trying to come up with something.
"Hm~ ah!" - Rin starts to hum, but then sits up straight as she comes up with an idea.- "The Orb of Nergal!"
"The what?" - both Mei and Shirou look at her.
Luvia frowns slightly.- "I thought we agreed to seal that thing off?"
"And we did, no playing with it, but this isn't for fun." - corrects Rin
"The Orb of... what does it do?" - Shirou pauses to look at her.
"It allows you to change your appearance. Anything at all, from your gender to skin color, height, body type... basically anything you want to change about yourself." - explains the brunette
"Alright, I can see why you sealed it off. So, why did you bring it up?" - Shirou restarts moving, going for the spices and beginning to spray half a pinch over the meat before sliding it within the kiln.
"We told you about the Darfari, right?" - asks Rin
"The cannibals, right? You girls wiped out their settlement in the area."
"If we change our appearance to look like them, the pirates won't have a reason to think we'd care about the hostages well being, right!?" - Mei straightens up as she understands the idea, and seems to think about it for a minute.
"So you basically want us to blackface in order to pretend we are stone-age cannibals." - Shirou closes the kiln and looks at Rin while moving to the 'sink' to wash his hands.- "Good thing twitter isn't a thing."
"What?" - Luvia looks at him, confusion dripping off her very being.
"Nothing you need to worry about. Besides, it's for a good cause." - he turns to Rin.- "Would it be correct to assume you have enough of their gear for us to look the part, Rin?"
"Not a damn thing, but we did saw and bury enough of it to know what it looks like, and our bracelets even learnt the ins and out of it. More importantly, whoever wrote all those books had some very interesting ideas on how to fuse illusions and matter through intention and purpose, I-" - then she stopped herself before going into a technical explanation only Luvia would appreciate or understand.- "I can make just the one set of armor and use a specialized thaumaturgy bench to change the shape of our equipment to look like pretty much anything we want while keeping all of its defensive properties."
"...great?" - Shirou wasn't really sure what all that meant but knew well enough that 'leave it to Rin' tends to work anyway.
"Lady Tohsaka, could you make my armor look like that beautiful dress you gave me?" - Mei on the other hand, seemed to have understood it just fine.
"Call me Rin, Mei. Also, yes I could, but I think wearing your dress in the middle of Sepermeru is a good way to get you assaulted, you know?" - she catches Luvia frowning a little bit, and just knows that her finnish friend is going to ask the same thing.- "Anyway, thanks to the bracelet, it should actually take barely twenty minutes or so, thus it's not really an important part of the plan. Instead, we should try and scout the pirates' place and look for a way in."
"Ah... about that." - Shirou smiles a little as he starts explaining about the pirate land ship while keeping track of the venison on the kiln.
~O~
""That's so stupid."" - is Luvia and Rin's overlapping comment.
"It's kind of cool, though." - commented Shirou as he took the venison and laid it on a silver plate (he didn't know if he should be surprised the girls owned one) before cutting it in vertical slices, adding some pepper, a whiskey shot worth of fruit juice, and two little leaves for presentation sake before handing it to Mei so she could take it to the table.- "Thanks Mei."
"Hn." - Mei nods and happily takes the finished dish to the table, following it with the mashed potatoes (they're not really potatoes, but Shirou is pretty sure they're somewhere in Africa so hoping for a southamerican tuber is nonsense, ergo he made due with local stuff) and the salad, while Shirou carried over the hot bread slices so everyone was finally sitting at the table together.
"It looks great, Shirou." - comments Rin, already feeling her mouth watering from the scent alone.
"Let me serve your portion, lady Tohsaka." - Mei takes the meat fork and reaches for Rin's dish.
"Thanks Mei... I already told you to call me Rin, though."
"Hmm~" - Mei nods.- "So you did."
"You aren't going to, though?"
"My people has always been ruled by a Witch Queen. To us, both of you will be automatic nobility. Think of me as a show of what to expect once you have arrived to Xel-ha."
"In that case, think of it as an eccentricity, and indulge us." - Luvia stops Rin's reply with a hand on her friend's arm, and decides to attack from a different direction.- "Would that be acceptable? Also please do tell us about your Witch Queen."
"Yes... Luviagelita." - replies the redhead
"What would it take for you to call me Luvia?"
"...ah, well ...a more personal relationship?" - the lemurian ventures as casually as she can.
"Fine." - Luvia sighs.- "Luviagelita it is, then. For now. Could you tell us about your Witch Queen?" (1)
"Yes! I'd love to!"
Shirou is happy everyone seems to be getting along, but still thinking about the people in the pirates' cages. Should he be disappointed that their own time as slaves didn't teach them anything, or understand that it is such a normal part of their society that they feel it is perfectly normal for a former slave to enslave people in turn?
From his conversations with Conan, he knows that at least the Cimmerian hates the very idea of slavery after spending his childhood as a slave himself, so he should probably attribute it to the pirates being hardened criminals instead of excusing them as a product of their times and culture. Just further evidence that they can't be peacefully integrated into the region, and of the need for their removal.
Mei explains how the Lemurian people have always followed the Witch Queen, the scion of the Lemurian royal bloodline, who would be raised to her status after the death of the previous queen, and given the With Queen's Mask to wear, which would then imbue her with magnificent sorcerous might and the endless knowledge of every former queen...
"But when the last Witch Queen died, and my people tried to elevate someone else unto the position, the mask did not react. It is now traditional for girls to try donning the mask during their coming-of-age ceremony, and yet..." - Mei sighs sadly
""Uh..."" - Rin and Luvia look at each other, and Rin nods towards the blonde.- "Mei, do you think your people would be offended if we give it a try?"
"Of course not, lady Ede- I mean, Luviagelita. You are already a witch after all! If you could wield the wisdom of every Witch Queen on top of that, it would mean the birth of a new royal bloodline!"
"Wait a minute... from your story, I get the impression that there are no witches amongst your people, Mei." - Rin points out after thinking about it for a moment.- "Why is that?"
"Sorcery was the sole domain of the Witch Queen."
"Hm~"
That makes both Luvia and Rin feel suspicious about it, but it would make sense for the royal family to hog the power of thaumaturgy for themselves, and if simply donning a relic was enough to gain access to the full might of your family's ancestry... it is similar enough to their own family's Magic Crest, so they decide to leave it at that.
"Hm. While the convenience of passing down all of your knowledge to a descendant simply by wearing a relic is undeniable, they should have considered what would happen if that relic got damaged or lost." - Rin comments while rubbing the sides of her head.
"To be fair, their family line died before that happened." - Luvia finishes her meal and thanks Shirou for it again.- "Anyway, we should check on the fawn. They should be fully grown bucks by now so we need to let them out of the animal pen. After that, we can get started with the Orb of Nergal while Rin does whatever she needs to do on her end."
"It is reversible, right?" - Shirou looks at her friends with an understandably worried expression.
"Yes and no." - explains Rin.- "The changes are permanent, but you can always just change back unto yourself with another use of the Orb. We decided not to use it because it doesn't has a convenient function such as saving a specific person's appearance, which means we can't be sure we'll get ourselves quite right when we switch back..."
"I understand. One does tend to have a somewhat skewered perception of their own body. I read once that the mental map of our own body is rather distorted. Our hands and feet feel way bigger than they really are, for example." - Shirou nods, now actually a little more worried in some ways, but happy that the process can be reversed to a degree.
"Wouldn't it be better to leave it to someone else instead, then?" - suggests Mei.- "Someone who is intimately used to your body, for example."
"You need to operate the orb yourself, but having someone else check your results seems like a really good idea." - Luvia approves after sipping a bit of wine.
"Alright, let's get moving, then. I assume you are going to insist on cleaning the table and doing the dishes, right Shirou?"
"Of course."
"In that case, I'll get started on building the thaumaturgy equipment needed for changing our armor's appearance. Luvia, Mei, could you please let out the animals from the pen and make sure they eat and have some water before taking them to the barn?"
"Of course, la- I mean Rin." - Mei concedes right away
"Actually, I am sure Mei can do that on her own. I will try and dig out the Orb from that chest we stuffed it in and check it for any damage." - says Luvia as she begins to stand up.
"...the orb is fine." - interjects Rin
Luvia looks at her friend. She gives her a good, inquisitive look. She smiles like the cat who ate the bird and is about to comment on how now that she's paying attention, Rin's chest area does appear to be half an inch more generous than before, but then sees her friend blush like an apple while looking at her with a pleading expression and nodding towards Shirou, and decides to be merciful. For now.
'Definitively blackm- I mean, teasing material for later.' - she thinks to herself, and Rin goes just a tiny bit redder.- "Alright Mei, let's go check on the animals."
"Yes, Luviagelita." - smiles Mei
"That is growing old fast..." - mumbles the blonde under her breath
"Alright, I'll get started on boiling the hyena meat before picking up the table and cleaning the kitchen. No point in cleaning twice." - comments Shirou as he starts standing up.
"Eh, you doing that with what?" - Rin looks at him with some confusion.
"Mei and I processed a bunch of hyenas, and she wanted to know if I could prepare something with them."
"Alright... so why are you getting started on dinner right after we finished lunch?"
"Hyenas are mainly scavengers, and that means parasites. I just want to make absolutely, positively sure that anything we put into our bodies is safe, you know? We are not as tough as the locals so we can't take our chances."
"..."
"Rin, what is it?"
"...give me a minute, I'm using Structural Grasp on myself. Looking for parasites."
Shirou facepalms, but is glad to hear she found nothing after a thorough check.
"Well, just in case, I am boiling this meat for five or six hours. And no I can't just use Structural Grasp to check it for parasites, I am not familiar enough with a hyena's tissues to know what should or shouldn't be there, Rin."
"Alright, you do that, I am going to go do ...stuff."
"Sure."
~O~
Rin walks in a slow, elegant, and measured way toward the bed. She does not, absolutely does not, look extremely guilty and rushed as she does so. She kneels down to pull out the reinforced chest from under the bed where she had been keeping the Orb, and makes double sure nobody is looking before opening it and depositing it on a pillow atop a desk.
Thankful nobody saw where she was keeping it, she finally goes and relaxes as she builds a new, specialized workbench for their magical workshop.
~O~
"I must say, Luviagelita, I admire you and Rin for showing such restraint about the ...Orb of Nergal, was it? It just shows how rightfully confident you are about your magnificent appearance." - Mei talks while opening the animal pen and leading the tame buck out of it.- "I would probably have used it to grow another inch or two, at the very least. Perhaps shrunk my breasts a little?"
"Why would y- ah, warrior, right. I do suppose they tend to get in the way during most combat situations." - the blonde looks down at herself for a moment before guiding two more gazelles out of the pen.- "In our culture, large breasts are seen as a highly attractive trait by men, you know?"
"Is that so?" - the redhead looks at her with a raised eyebrow.
"Don't make them too big. I am fairly sure Shirou isn't the type. Actually, he seems to be a leg man." - the blonde returns her a knowing look.- "You have great legs already, anyway." - then she smirks to herself.- 'And he's also an ass man if the attention he gives Rin is anything to go by.' (2).
Luvia decides to just humm in approval and say nothing about Rin messing with it behind her back. If she wants to change anything about herself, well... it literally is the absolute definition of 'my body my choice', after all.
"Speaking of self-body image. I have noticed you used to have body paint peeking out here and there. Since it's gone now, I assumed it was body paint, anyway. Do your people not have tattoos? Please tell me more about your people's culture."
"It would be my pleasure!"
And thus Luviagelita was spared of the surprise about the Lemurian religious ceremony she and Rin had been invited to. She decided to keep quiet about it, though, and enjoy Rin's look when things get started.
~O~
'Sure wish we had a pressure cooker.' - thought Shirou as he finished washing everything and tidying up the kitchen area.- 'The bracelet has no instructions for one, and I vaguely remember it being a somewhat modern invention. Something to experiment with once I'm at my own forge.'
Well, he wasn't surprised to find that the Lemurians had their own culinary techniques, which he was more than happy to add to his repertoire, just as they were happily impressed with his own.
'Ah, I really hope I get to talk to Razma's people before they go. I'd at least like to write down some genuine Shemite recipes.' - he nodded to himself as he finished drying his hands and hung the apron, looking around for the source of the sounds of sewing and hammering he had been hearing intermittently for a bit now.
His feet led him to an area a little closer to the exit, where he found Rin wearing a thickly padded white overall over her clothes, sleeves pulled up close to her shoulders as she worked on some wooden planks she was sawing into shape. He smiled at the sight. Who would have ever believed the school idol had a knack for carpentry?
'Well, to be fair, she didn't used to, I guess.' - he smiled as he admired the figure of his slim girlfriend working with her hands, black hair pulled up into a bun, leaving her princess neck exposed. He really wanted to walk over, surprise her with a hug and kiss that neck of hers for a solid minute at the very least but knew better than to surprise someone working with sharp tools, so instead he just took a seat nearby to enjoy the sight and wait for her to notice him on her own.
He didn't have to wait long.
"Shirou, what are you doing?" - the Tohsaka heiress blinks as she notices him sitting with his legs crossed as he leans against the cave's wall, sitting atop a couple of wooden crates.
He enjoyed the way a drop of sweat ran down her face and the little bit of hair that was sticking to her face without her knowing, giving her a naturally flushed, sensual look even while dressed in rugged work clothes.- "Just enjoying the sight."
"Idiot." - she instantly replied through her smile.- "I'm almost finished here but still need to put it all together and then still need to make a couple of sets of Darfari armor, so as soon as Luvia comes back, ask her to show you and Mei how to use the Orb."
"Alright."
"Well?" - she asked, seeing as he wasn't moving.
"Well, what? Luvia isn't back yet, so I want to watch you work for a bit longer."
"Shirou Emiya, are you trying to tease a Rin Tohsaka with both sharp and heavy objects at her disposal? Truly, this world must gave thrown plenty of challenges your way if your courage has bloomed like this. Ah no wait, it is not courage, you've always been an idiot."
"Alright." - is all he says back to her.
"What do you mean 'alright' all accepting like that!?"
"If agreeing is all it'll take so you'll let me enjoy the sight some more, then..." - he smiles
"...idiot!" - she does not, however, throw anything at him, and just goes back to work while blushing a little bit.
"Ah, I actually did have a few things I wanted to ask you." -he says, and he's lying as he just thought of it.- "Wouldn't it be enough to change our skin tone and dye our hair black? I think we are over thinking this. You don't need to apply magic for everything, and anyway, the different skin and hair color should be enough when you add the armor to complete the look."
"Its called being thorough, Shirou."
"I'd rather not have you change your looks without a guarantee you can go back to how you are."
"Well, we already agreed, so there."
"You are beautiful and I love you."
CREEAK!
"You made me ruin a plank, you idiot!"
"You look lovely when you're angry, too."
"Ugh, now I need to smooth another plank. Whatever, just be quiet while I work."
"Alright."
~O~
Luvia seemed to agree with Shirou that a change of skin and hair color should be enough when he mentioned it to her, but Mei really wanted to try the orb, and Shirou was somewhat curious as well, so he finally agreed to it, though not without some reluctance.
Mei made herself three inches taller and scaled everything else accordingly. She also made her lips fuller and her forehead a little more prominent. Rounder cheeks and a smaller chin completed the look of a rather attractive, dark-skinned beauty with bright red hair, and she was having fun checking herself on the mirror, obviously uncaring about her friends being with her on the room, or perhaps even hoping they'd get ideas from it.
"I am fairly sure you should change your hair color." - Shirou is doing his level best to look in a different direction as he talks.
"I've seen Darfari war masks. They have a plume on top in some bright color, I'm just going to make an opening and pass my hair through it."
"Wait, go back to the mask thing. Why did you change your looks, then!?" - Shirou blurted out.
"It seemed fun."
"I- but-" - he facepalmed, hard, then looked at Luvia.- "You are not changing your appearance, are you?"
"...it does look fun."
"Well, I'm not touching you or Rin until you get your own looks back."
"Sherou~" - she whimpered.
"Don't you Sherou~ me, Luvia. It'd be fine if the orb has an undo function, but it does not, does it?"
"Well, alright... I am still making myself taller and slimmer, though. Darfari women are quite tall, and the men are taller still."
"That's fine." - Shirou is admittedly curious, but abstains from making any noticeable changes beyond skin tone, perhaps adding an inch here and there, but nothing that can be seen unless he takes his clothes off.- 'It should be fine, right? I mean, what guy would resist...? I doubt they'll complain even if they notice anyway...' (3)
Oh, the girls will definitively notice and tease him about it later, but just a little. Wouldn't want him actually switching back, after all.
~O~
"Is this really armor?" - Shirou looks at himself.
"It counts according to the spell and the Illusionist bench." - Rin smiles as she enjoys the sight.
"You look very dashing, Sherou." - the blonde nods nods
"You look very tasty- I mean, dashing, Shirou." - Mei nods nods along with Luvia and Rin.
"It's a loincloth. Yours at least has a shirt."
"Blame Darfari fashion and customs." - Rin smiles.- "By the way, its stuck looking that way until we change it to something else, so start thinking what's your favorite armor look, though at that point may as well just keep it until we make you a new one. I've been looking for a chance to make some Dragon armor for a while, you know? We have most of the materials anyway, just need to go on a short hunting expedition north to get some elephant hide."
"Wait, what about you lot?" - Shirou looks at them with some suspicion.
"We have entire wardrobes of things we can change our armor to after this. You do not."
"I made myself a pair of pants and a shirt, I can just make another."
"Vetoed." - Rin crosses her arms and looks at the other two girls.
""Vetoed."" - they agree, crossing their arms and having a lot of fun.
"I'll get you for this later." - he warns them.
"You are free to, but please make sure you do so while wearing that." - smiles Rin, happy to get back at him for his early teasing now that she has the chance.
"Oh my. That is certainly an idea." - Luvia blushes a little as she holds a hand against her left cheek.
"Uhm~" - Mei hums softly.
"Anyway, we should go check the land ship as soon as nightfall comes by." - comments Rin
"Won't they see us approach if we're carrying torches?" - asks Mei
"Oh, actual Darfari helmets are Mystic Codes that come with night vision, you know? I thought we could at least wear those so I made four." - explains Rin
"You know what, that's almost worth keeping the armor for." - admits Shirou.
"""We are glad you think so."""
"You are all bad people and you should feel bad."
~O~
A/N: Just a fun slice-of-life chapter. Next chapter is scouting and attacking the pirates' land ship. And yeah, with the sorcery update in Conan, now you can add 'skins' to your equipment! Its actually really useful in a pvp server because you can make end-game gear look like starting rags, and your end-game weapon looks like the barely held-together things you make with twigs, twine, and rocks at the beginning of the game, for ambushing assholes that try to grief low-level players, make it hard for the other players to judge your equipment, and of course because sometimes you just enjoy the appearance of a piece of gear over another.
Anyway, this chapter was ready since Saturday, but I decided to slow down the uploading speed as to not spam chapter update notifications on people's emails and confuse them with it, leading to people skipping chapters, which is a thing I was told happened to a few readers in the past.
If you want access to the newest chapters, send 20 bucks to... I'm just kidding I don't have a plan for this story at the moment, just let me know in a PM. You can set up a mail account just for receiving advanced chapters if you want. I have two mail accounts, one that I use for important stuff and one that I use to sign up for websites I suspect may spam it. It's a pretty useful thing to have.
Or you could just wait, or drop by Discord, add me, and ask for more chapters, so I can just send you the files there. -shrug- My discord is Maglad#4263
1 - In the original storyline, Razma assembles an expedition into the Lemurian's city, looking for a way to break the enchantment on the bracelets and free her people, but then gets possessed by the Witch Queen mask and the player needs to defeat/free her. It has been implied by the developers that the Witch Queen's spirit resides in the mask and it had been taking over the bodies of her descendants generation after generation. Reminds me of Julian from the Miyuverse. Anyway, it possessed Razma because the Witch Queen felt her royal blood, even if it wasn't Lemurian royal blood. Which brings me to a question for my more lore-savvy readers. Neither Luvia nor Rin has any royal blood, right? Uh, this gives me an idea for an Omake.
2 - I am still a bit sad nobody noticed the joke about 's-shove it in!' in the previous lemon scene, but have high hopes for 'Tohsaka Rin's anus is completely defenseless' in the next. Truly, anime-only fans have no idea how snarky and funny Shirou actually is. He has a LOT of inner monologue lines that got all left out of the anime and manga versions of Fate.
3 - I mean, really. I'm fairly sure nobody would resist adding a little bit at least.