"I'll search for you!"
His response was ever so typical, as much as it tore into her heart and lifted her higher in equal measure. His mouth affected a self-deprecating smile.
"Sorry master, but I don't think you'll find me."
The ashes of their victory tasted filthy upon her lips. She felt her anger, her righteous anger at his steadfast determination to ignore his own suffering even now. She could see it in his eyes, in the narrowed creases in their unseemingly ancient corners, in the way the right side of his mouth quirked down ever so slightly to denote frustration or anger or sadness-
This would not stand. Her lone command seal blazed upon her hand like a miniature sun reborn. Her time was running out.
She reached out her hand towards him, and even though he was too far away for her to grasp, she could feel the faded red coat of his sleeves sliding between her fingers.
"I will."
His eyes widened imperceptibly but she could read him like a book by now. His mouth opened, his gait centered itself, his shoulders pulled back proudly(?) - no, determinedly. She knew what was coming.
"Don't. Please don't follow in my footsteps. They don't go anywhere, they won't lead you anywhere. You won't find me."
She heard his unspoken words.
I don't deserve to be found.
"You're wrong," she muttered softly.
He didn't understand. By the narrowing of his eyes and the clenching of his fists, and the furrowing of his brows, he didn't understand.
"You're wrong!" She said louder, her hands balled into fists. A stray wind was picking up, blowing her hair into her stinging eyes but she never lost sight of him. "I'll find you! I'll save you!"
He tried to reason with her, tried to dissuade her.
"It's a fool's errand, master, - " and her blood roiled at the title. " - I'm lost, of my own doing. You know this to be true, don't deny it. Live a happy life. Forget about me."
He was pleading now.
"Please."
If not for you, then for me.
Artoria was so terribly selfish, in that moment. She couldn't lie to him. She couldn't give him the relief he so desperately wanted. Not if it was borne from an untruth.
"No."
His face was pained, twisted into terrible shape and her heart screamed at her to comfort him, to hold him as though that would let her keep him with her, even if he would've only pushed her away with that same grin wrote on the edges of his mouthpiece like the words of primordial man, etched into ancient stone. She thought that maybe he could've been around, even back then. Fighting, of course. Always fighting.
…His legs were fading away, now. There wasn't any fight left in him, after all the battle was done. Or maybe, he instinctively knew that this was not a battle he could fight with his swords and his sword arrows. He had already given everything that he had. Gilgamesh, Scathatch, Arthur—even in the face of all these legends of old… it was him, who came out on top. It was them.
Our victory.
At the lines of her cheeks, at the creases of her eyes, she hoped he could see;
"I'm so proud of you."
When his arms started to go, she spied the minute change of expression at her words, if only in the softening edge of his brow, and for a minute, she could imagine that soft gaze watching her in her days gone by, the calloused press of his hands on her shoulders, guiding her past to her future.
"I have defeated all your enemies, master. I have stood by your side to complete your objectives. I did what any good servant would have done. There is no need for pride."
This silly man. He couldn't understand what was right in front of his face, tripping over his own footprints in the sand. Never holding anything. Never seeing the Star perched upon the horizon.
He wasn't smiling, so—
—She smiled for him.
With everything that she had.
"I love you, Shirou."
Sorrow's liquor streaked down her pale skin like hatch-marked razor scars, doomed to die by the faint kiss of the rising sun. Her eyes threatened to boil out of her skull, a quick flash of her lids, the lone dam that saved the world from a fusillade to rival Orpheus with its grief, a liquid heat to rival the legendary Christian hell.
…Maybe she was being too dramatic. He certainly would have thought so. Something bubbled out of her chest, halfway between a laugh and a sob.
He…
Was gone.
When she dared to open her eyes, to nothing but the warmth of the sun finally horizon-free.
It was like he was never there at all.
Her lips quirked up in something that vaguely resembled a smile.
"That's so like you."
Even as she turned her back on the grail's grave, she never stopped feeling the soft gaze of his eyes on her, and the calloused feel of his hands on her shoulders.
She took her steps, measured and true, and as she strode towards her unexplored future with steady gait, her shoulders pulled back proudly(?), determinedly, each clunk of her boots upon the ground resounding with the echo of her endless pursuit—
And, if she strained her ears just so, and the world's heartbeat slowed to a crawl, she could almost hear the beat of his feet alongside hers, and the ghost of his breath on her neck that replaced the wind.
She spoke, her words the last that she would ever share with that man, unto Eternity, searching for that place; the crimson sands beyond that hopeful Star, where the swords did sing and a small, red Archer closed his eyes to the sun horizon-free.
...
"Please, wait for me, Shirou."
AN: Just a small little one shot for you, inspired by Fate: Break Dawn by Gavius which I highly recommend you check out if you haven't read it.
For those confused about what was happening and who was who, this was Master!Artoria and CG!EMIYA at the end of their own HGW.
This story potentially is a prologue to a reverse Fate-In Time situation where she finds away a way to get to CG!EMIYA Route timeline to change his future (unlikely), or it could follow some of her journeys going forward as she endlessly chases after EMIYA. We'll see.
Anyway, my muse has been all over the place lately, but I wanted to put something out, so enjoy!