ITP: Takoyaki and the meaning of life

[maybe_a_king]

Who: Arturia, a select few, and an open prompt
Where: Various for the closed prompts; Scorpio for the open one
When: Shortly after the return from Animus; Timeline is flexible otherwise
Summary: In which Arturia finds out more than she bargained for and has a minor existential crisis about it.
Warnings: None at the moment.

[For everyone; Scorpio Ward]
Shirou's cooking was better.

That's all Arturia could think as she sat on a bench in the park, idly popping some takoyaki she bought at a nearby street vendor into her mouth. Ever since she had gotten back from that Tower, her thoughts had been concentrated on home, the Grail War, everything she had found out. Given all that information she knew she should be in the library researching her 'ancestor' to try and find some connection--even if she'd met a version of that ancestor in the Tower itself.

Yet all she could seem to focus on was the takoyaki and how much better Shirou's tasted. She missed home, missed her daily routine with her friends, missed being a semi-normal schoolgirl who happened to be able to walk on water. Now she had to contend with the resurrected spirits of mythological figures fighting to the death over a possibly-corrupted Holy Grail, an interdimensional entity straight out of HP Lovecraft's writings looking to cause trouble for the human race, a city slowly turning against Visitors such as her, and an existential crisis on top of that.

"....Shirou's is better," she said out loud as she ate yet another piece. It was definitely easier to focus on that than anything else at the moment.

[For hadronknight]
A month. A month away from here. Six months since she initially left home.

After everything she'd been through in the last month, Arturia was tired, a weariness that she could feel deep in her bones that made her head spin. Part of her wondered how she hadn't been so homesick before in Hinoto-Ri, but when she entered her apartment, had four cats look up at her with big eyes, and saw one of her uncle's samurai-themed figures on the coffee table, she knew the answer.

Unlike in the Tower of Animus and it's lonely population, she had a home here. Her family had come with her. True, it wasn't home, but at least she wasn't alone.

It appeared her uncle was out. Doing what or when he'd get in she had no idea. She picked up Snapdragon--who was not quite the great fat lumps he once was, but still healthy. She would have to thank her uncle later on. Perhaps see about getting him a gift.

Right now?

Arturia was tired. Her body ached from the fight within Nyarlathotep's maze and her mind still swam with the images she saw in those mirrors of herself with a glowing sword. They had to be illusions of some kind, she supposed, but that was something she would worry about later. For now, there is nothing like being able to sleep in your own bed after a long journey, surrounded by those familiar things that reminded you of home. Arturia gratefully curled up in hers in the tiny apartment she shared with her uncle, feeling safe for the first time since they had been dragged to the Tower.

As she drifted off to sleep she really did recognize the fact that home, indeed, was sweet.

[For gforceinmyfaaaace]

An email Pit would have gotten earlier in the day:

Pit,

I'll be waiting outside Libra Apartments. I talked to my uncle and now I'm ready to talk to you.

--Arturia

It was actually kind of nerve-wracking to wait for Pit, her head still swimming from everything her uncle had told her. Her? A copy of King Arthur himself? And she'd been designed from the beginning to be a Master in the Grail War? It was almost too much to think of at once and she hoped her happy-go-lucky friend would be able to help her make sense of it all.

Arturia hated to admit it sometimes, but it was nice to have a friend who knew nothing of the situation back home. Someone she hadn't spent years keeping secrets from, who she didn't have to worry too much about looking at her differently when she told him her secrets. No, the only thing she'd have to worry about was if Pit would tell someone else. If that happened, Arturia would have to make it clear to him that she wanted to tell people herself. Surely Pit would be understanding of that much.

Still, she waited outside the Libra Apartments like she said she would. Despite the stares she got from the natives now--and, oh, it felt like everyone could see what she now knew she was--she waited. She gave her word and she refused to go back on it for something as trifling as a few whispers in the street.

[For greyerrant]
Somehow, in the last few days, Arturia had fallen back into the routine of training with Garviel in the morning before school. Routine had been good for her nerves, but the thoughts plaguing her mind lately had made her distracted, her form not as sharp as it had been. Normally she could get at least three hits on Garviel during their sessions. Now, when she should have been at her sharpest, she was lucky if she could only get in one.

Garviel said nothing, thankfully. Not until Arturia finally decided to speak up. Who would know better about the matter without being directly involved than Garviel Loken?

"Mr. Loken?" she began after their session that morning as she pulled out the bagels and yogurt she'd brought for their breakfast, "....do you think finding out a secret about your birth make you.... different?"

Comments

[maybe_a_king]

This, unfortunately, was not something she had found out in the Tower. This was something she had found out from her uncle upon returning home and trying to open up to her. True, she'd seen that figure with the golden sword in the mirrors, met a distorted, tainted version of her, but to think she's a copy of some kind? It was hard to wrap her mind around.

Even moreso was, unlike what Loken was implying, was that:

"What if you wound up walking the path you were made for without even realizing it? Without even any input from the people who created you?"

[greyerrant]

That pulls Garviel up short for a moment, and he lowers his blade to think more clearly for a moment, sheathing it.

"Good question. That would imply two things. One, that you were eminently suited to the task that you were created for." Like himself, though he doesn't say that.

"Or, that there is some mechanism of fate influencing things, and I do not believe in that. The only destiny we really have is what we forge. We can be shaped by our abilities, by those that taught us, but i the end we are our own. Even if your feet are already on the path, you can step aside. Choose another route."

He takes a step towards her, not menacingly, but rather to impart a lesson. "I made a choice like that once. To stay loyal to something greater than a man. It cost me dearly, but I do not regret it."

He steps back, the moment of instruction done, and adds, "The question one should ask is this: 'Is this path right? Will I serve those I honor and care for by remaining on it?' If so, then there is no harm in it. If not... well, the answer is obvious in that case."

[maybe_a_king]

"But it's not exactly something I could back out of," she said, dropping the pretense. She'd vowed to herself to open up more and if Garviel hated her for her secrets then so be it. She would not lie or cover up the truth as she had before.

"And.... I don't think fate is involved? Simply a lot of coincidences and perhaps some 'preprogramming' for lack of a better word." It would explain why her uncle decided to go to Fuyuki of all places when he decided to go to Japan.

"But I gave this friend my word I would aid her in this and see to it nothing disastrous happens, but...." she sighed, staring down at the Command Spells on her hand--the ones Garviel only knew to be tattoos--before looking down at him again, "It's still disturbing to know I've been walking a path like this without even knowing."

[greyerrant]

While Garviel hates deceit, and, there is indeed a moment of disapproval from him which she can sense just by his slight change of expression, it soon passes. He listens to her question, and her statement, then nods once.

"Hmm. Well, I can only comfort you with the thought that you appear to be doing it for the right reasons. I'll repeat what you said back to you: 'I gave my friend my word I would aid her in this and see to it that nothing disastrous happens.' You're keeping your word, and you're trying to avoid a crisis. I don't see the problem. You may have been walking a path that was already laid down for you. If so, that can be disturbing. But again, you will someday have to make a choice, and it may be a very important one. The path will be behind you then, and it will be up to you as the person you become, in that moment, with your own strength, to make the choice."

He's quiet for a moment, pausing briefly to touch his right shoulder pauldron, and the hidden sign of the Sigilite that has been engraved there.

"Even if you are only doing what you must for the moment, there will always be a moment when you must exert your own will, and make your own decision. My hope is simply that those around you, like myself, who are teaching you, will have taught you enough to guide you to the choice that is best for you, and everyone else."

There's another moment of silence, and he says, "Of course, the choice may between something that benefits you, and something that benefits others. I'm curious to see what you'd do." Though, in fairness, he thinks she'd probably choose self-sacrifice and altruism over vainglory. Much as he did.


He shakes his head, "But we're dancing around the issue, to a degree, and I'm not a dancer by build or intent. What do you have to do, Arturia?"

[maybe_a_king]

She shifts uneasily at this and here comes the part that she thinks he'll hate her for with how much she's heard him talk of heresy. She clasps her hand close to her chest. Then she holds it up so he can see.

"This isn't a fashion trend where I come from, Mr. Loken. I apologize. It's the sign of a contract I made with a familiar called a Servant. They're...."

And she told him everything: about the Grail War, how she accidentally became a participant, what she understood a Servant--a Heroic Spirit--to be. She told him of Rin, who had spent most of her life preparing for it, how shocked both had been of the other's involvement and desire to make an alliance. How in the previous Grail War there had been a disaster and....

"--and I apologize for keeping this from you, but I had no idea how you would take it and all my life I'd been told that the Mage's Association would kill anyone who let the knowledge of magic become public. Even if I can only do one thing with that magic."

[greyerrant]

Loken's expression stays stony throughout most of the explanation, his eyes occasionally showing hurt, anger, and something almost like.... pity? Or understanding, anyway. Once or twice he looks like he's going to strike her, or even.... cry?

"I have already met such a spirit in the Tower, seeking his master. Such things are not entirely unknown to me." The way he speaks of it makes clear his opinion on that sort of thing. It is anathema to him, to everything he believes, much like the Personas themselves.

"You were right to be concerned about how I would react." He's still uncertain about how to react. She was drawn into this by accident, not by choice, and she is still Arturia. "I am uncertain as to what to do. You have told me yourself you use... sorcery. That you traffic with spirits. And yet, it was not a choice you made yourself, and your reasons are noble. It is my task to judge, and if need be to cleanse the world of such dangerous things as what you speak of."

He takes a step towards her, all his mass and menace manifest in this moment.

"And yet... you are as kin of a sort to me. You asked me if I had a wife, once, and I had never thought of it. BUt I thought later, that if I had a child, I would wish her to be much like you. I cannot judge you, Arturia. Or even hate you. To hear these words about you now, to know this truth, it hurts. You are in a desperate struggle, and you may make choices out of necessity that you will hate yourself for, but I can understand this. And so, I will tell you my tale. You will be late for school, but I think this needs to be said."

And with that he tells her everything. From his rise to the Mournival, to HOrus' wounding on Davin, to the massacre on the embarkation deck where Loken's hands was stained by the blood of innocent humans, to Istvaan, and the great betrayal there, and finally to his survival, and secret task to guard humanity's soul by Malcador, explaining that he is now a true knight-errant, why he wears no insignia, and that he himself has become something of a shadow being, dealing in secrets and necessity that make him weigh even honor and truth on a knife-point.

The pain in Garviel's voice is clear at several points, and he stops, when speaking of Tarik's death at Aximand's hands, and again when he speaks of a loyalist dying in a fight with him during the infiltration of Aldurukh. While he did not kill the loyal astartes (Iacton Qurze did that), Loken clearly blames himself for not subduing him more swiftly.

He closes with this statement, "So now we stand here. You know my hearts, and I know your heart. I will not stand in judgement of you, you must judge yourself, and how we proceed from here."

[maybe_a_king]

"I think, so long as I don't make a habit of it, I can miss school just this once," she told him, giving him leave to tell his tale.

It made her heart ache to hear it. A proud warrior like him so betrayed by those around him? How could Loken even bear the scars? How could one person manage to survive all that?

Yet something deep inside her, in that place where she felt the guilt that forever weighed on her she could never put her finger on, felt a kinship to him at that moment. Hearing he'd like a child like her warmed her, if only briefly, and once he was through she shifted uneasily. If they are truly laying their hearts bare as he said, then....

"Then there is something else I should tell you now that I know you won't judge me: the truth of why I said I was walking down a path already prepared for me...."

And she told him of the origin she had only just learned about: How she was an artificial being called a 'homunculus', made by magic in the image of an ancient king. How she'd been made to be a potential Master in the Grail War. How her uncle--also a homunculus of the same king--had been a betrayer but could not bear to see her used in a manner similar to he. How he had desperately tried to shield her until recently so that she may have some semblance of a childhood. How being in the Grail War disturbed both of them because they had been drawn to the site of it years ago without even realizing it.

By the time she was done she felt as if her very soul had gone through a ringer, tired in a way she hadn't felt for as long as she could remember but still felt familiar. It was like a weight had been lifted, knowing she had no more secrets to tell.

"It's almost comical the only magic I inherited from King Arthur is to walk on water now that I think about it."

[greyerrant]

Loken's eyes widen considerably, and he almost smiles for a moment. Then he lets out a long breath and says, "I spoke to a Heroic Spirit who classed himself Berserker in the Tower. His name was Lancelot."

He'll let Arturia put the rest of it together from there.

"I understand what it is like to not be... entirely, or even mostly human. We stand apart, both more and less than them. In your case the changes are minor enough, I suppose, in my case, somewhat less so. But there is a power in it, and a responsibility. You were made for a purpose I can't begin to comprehend, not really. This war you spoke of sounds like a great exercise in foolishness to me, and people shouldn't be sacrificed to it. I think you and your friends should end it, if you can. Win, then bring peace by breaking the cycle. That's all I'm trying to do, that's all... on a much larger scale, that my Lord intended to do. To break the self-destructive cycles of man, to turn us away from internecine wars with unity."

He is quiet for a long time, looking up at the sky, then back to Arturia.

"I see parallels in our battles. Fathers and sons, warring across time. Nothing ever changes, at least not for humanity. We're always driven by a combination of pride, self-regard, and blatant ignorance. But I have faith, and hope, that someday we'll be enlightened enough to break free of it."

He offers her a huge hand. "I'll do my part here, if you do yours."