Phoe

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Standing this time costs her the most effort she can ever remember making. Her body is a thing of spirit particles and grudges, but the memory of muscles calls to her to ache and tremble. The willpower to resist it is exhausting. Food and rest. If the Roman had promised her only these she would have had to at least consider it. But she must not risk looking desperate. And she must not present as weak. An alliance represented the first real opportunity to turn things around she'd seen since her summoning. Losing her handle on it was absolutely unacceptable.

And so, she rises. Her back straight and her tattoos gleaming, she lets her long arms rest at her sides and holds her shattered weapon like it was meant to be a sacred relic, a thing of pride and purpose and not a broken thing of blackened metal. Even with her neck lifted high to present the fullest sense of her physicality the heavy iron bands at the bottom of her braid of faded golden hair brush against the ground. She does not smile, and she does not settle into a battle stance (as though she could). But she does offer the slightest of nods as she tilts her head down to look at these newcomers properly.

Tch. Showoff. The things that one gets up to with an ample mana supply. Saber cannot help but be jealous.

"The gods have perished, Child of Rome. And dead gods are not a thing to swear by, though I honor them still. I am surprised that I am alone in understanding this. It is a thing to be celebrated. The world around us is the proof: this green land of few and plenty can only have been forged in the crucible of the divine and the shattering of what came before. If you are an adherent to the old ways it is wrong of you to deny the honor of their sacrifice."

Her eyes gleam with cold, hard understanding as she gestures to the pockmarked and freshly battle scarred land around her. The broken trees lie scattered at her back; she honors them like fallen soldiers. Still no sign of her Master. Or the dragon. Useless cretins, both. No matter: in this moment the land counted for more than both of them put together.

"I will swear by this, instead. I am the enemy of that which threatens this reborn world. I am the enemy of the blight named Actia who formed the preposterous alliance of foxes that has harassed your every step and mine since we answered the call of our masters. The Varangian Guard were slightly after my time, but if Rome seeks the end of these enemies as well then I do not mind wearing the mantle.

"I do not seek the sunshard or its wishes. If you can offer me the opportunity to restore myself to a true, battle worthy condition then I shall win this war in your name. So long as it brings me Actia I do not mind serving you in the role I offered to my father when he first took me in."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"I," says Saber to the empty air, "Remain."

Not that she can claim much beyond that. Her magical energy is burned down to nothing, her wounds sap her physical strength, and her Master is nowhere to be found. It is only by her continued presence in this state she can even infer that Diaofei survived this encounter. Perhaps that dragon proved its worth after the lackeys had been dispersed. Or perhaps they'd both been captured and the fox was simply not strong enough to drag her prey far enough away for the connection to break.

"Master?" she calls, "If you can move, then come. I have need of your head."

And if you're not then good luck. Your Servant is no longer in good enough condition to give you princess rides.

Saber drops to one knee, propping herself up by the broken remains of her sword just to keep from toppling over any farther. Pathetic. Damage like this should be nothing to her. With even an approximation of her true strength she would have been swift enough to finish off Bohemond given this kind of opportunity, with power enough left over to tend to her wounds herself or even threaten her savior.

But blood still seeps from these unworthy wounds she suffered at the hands of nothing more than debris and the pressure of the princeling's lance. Her core is intact, and burning with hungry fire, but that is the most optimistic assessment of her condition she can manage. Everything else is pain and fatigue. She had not expected to be called to war and wind up weaker than she'd been in life.

This was a desperate moment. The solidarity of their shared pain had softened Saber's heart on the matter, but she could not afford to give Diaofei more than one more chance. Either they found a real source of usable mana, or she'd have to cut off her Master's hand and carry the remaining command seals to someone like Fluffymountains to forge a new contract.

Power. She needed power. Strength enough to use her own gifts properly. To kill Actia it was worth any price.

"As for you, newcomer: I take it from the lack of a second spear that you are interested in speaking? My head is not difficult to claim at the moment. Well if you are not here to deliver a warrior's death then step into the open. At minimum I would propose an exchange of information..."

Breathless Dead

At this point there is little she can do besides endure. Writhing only makes the sun daggers worse. Moaning only reminds her how pathetic and miserable she is here. Lying still, accepting what limited help the Uncrowned King can offer her own imperfect form, at least this isn't wasting energy on top of everything. She can make it until the water comes. She is strong enough for this. She only hopes it's clean enough to drink.

It does not occur to her to be repulsed by the swarm standing above her in the shape of a humanoid. It does not occur to her to be jealous. These... she refuses to call them the 'Portuguese', even in her head. That's an Azura word, and they had clearly advanced beyond the point where another civilizations idea of them held any weight at all. It's too much to think about. They simply are. She simply is. They thrive. She lies on the dirt in pain. This is the way things were meant to be.

But please. The water. She's going to...

"I'm not trying to hurt you either. I'm just... the whipping girl. Gods can't do shit to Her Imperial Majesty. That's their rule for each other. Can't undo what the rest of them have done. You've heard the line, right? I saw it once. Sort of. This stupid eye. Hermes' eye. Redana called it the 'Auspex' but I don't know what the fuck its name is actually. I just. See with Her vision. Before my useless genetics get in the way and dumb it all down. Perfect senses. That's what I'm supposed to have. Anything less and I die. But it's not enough for her. Not enough to do more than hold her sight for a little while."

Bella's tongue is splitting. She's certain she can feel it. She tries to swallow, and she can't. Every word is labored and much too airy, she can't find her voice. It hurts her lungs to use them this much. There's not even enough moisture in her body for tears. But she presses on. She can't stop herself anymore.

"I've seen her Heart, too. My mother held it in her hand. Hermes... wasn't fast enough. Or wise enough or, or whatever. She could only save half the galaxy. Sure you've heard this too. She loved the half that burned. She scooped it all up. Held it close. Sealed herself away. There's a whole fucking cult, an organization with nothing on their minds but doing what she would want. And they just spin in circles. They don't know. She won't tell them. All she says is that Humanity must remain on Tellus. She's a master of politics and manipulation. She's just building 'heroes' and baiting them out into the middle of nowhere so they can do what she refuses to and... I don't really know. I'm too stupid to understand it. Does it redeem Humanity if they reach Gaia? Doesn't make sense; they're already fucking dead.

"That's my job. Though. To get there. To give a message. Because everyone who left like good little children trying to do it on purpose all fucking died or melted away. I'm the only one who remembers. If I just... nnnnf! You don't. You don't understand. You can't go to Tellus. You can't! If you go, weird crystals or not, it's the last promise I've got left broken. I'll have failed. Everything. I! You think you know what barbarism is? The kennels I grew up in, before Nero plucked me out. I won't. I won't let you see. The torture. The training. The... treatments. Smoothing my skin, plucking my whiskers, tearing my claws out! And she! She just! Let it happen! I! I!"

She finds the strength to writhe after all. Apollo's curse be damned, it hurts too much not to thrash and squirm and scream with her weak voice. The thoughts inside her skull burn worse than any illness the sun god can cook up for her. It's too much it's too much it's too much.

"She saved me. She ruined me. She let me become a bomb. She lifted me to Praetor! First of any Servitor! But she kicked me out! Took the only home I ever wanted, and for what? She! Wanted! Redana to go! She did, I know she did! And even still she carved the fucking rose into my back and put a pretty crown on my head and threw me into nothing on a dagger made of death! I want to claw her face off! I want to wrap my arms around her and smell her again! I want... her to tell me I was good! I want to be enough! I never want to see her again, I hope the whole fucking Empire collapses into the Underworld and even Hades never sees it again! I want to save them. I just... want my sisters to not be sick anymore.

"I... you don't get it. If you go. If you make me. Fail. You won't learn the will of Hermes. You'll only find... her sword. She hasn't given up. She doesn't want to be known. Until she succeeds. Stupid... stupid bitch. Why? Why do I love her? I don't want it anymore. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know more. Water. No. I..."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

This should be impossible. Even accounting for the differences in their mana supplies and the relative quality of their Masters, what is happening is nonsense beyond her ability to calculate. His noble phantasm was a known quantity. His legend spoke of skill at siegecraft and a zeal for advancement and territory expansion. Even if he truly possessed a relic of such potency he should not be able to wield it to full effect.

Retreat should always have been an option. But there was nowhere left to run. For that matter she should not have been outmaneuvered so definitively by the fox. But she is here, holding nothing. This is a loss. An even more unsatisfying end to her campaign than the first time. There was no one around to bury her properly. If they only could, then...

Her spiritual core burns with a need for vengeance. It seeps into the ground beneath her and rots the grass she kneels on. Where her blood drips from cuts over her eyes and down the length of her arms it seers black burn patterns into the very earth. Even now she cannot help but paint with runes, though she has no mind to. Revenge, revenge, revenge! She must have it! She cannot die without visiting this pain on the one who caused it!

But there are no more reserves of mana to stitch her wounds back closed. Her noble phantasm lacks the magical energy required to even activate it, let alone empower it enough to turn the tide against such a famous relic in the hands of a warrior using the fullness of their true name. Her sword has shattered three quarters of the way down the blade; useless. She keeps a death grip on it anyway, despite her disgust. Better to die with a broken sword than empty handed.

"You are not the first to lecture me about the supposed weakness of my soul, little crusader. They are all of them vanished into dust. I remain."

All the blue has melted from her eyes, replaced by dirty gold. There is only one ring on a finger on her left hand. Not a prize of war, but the first one she was ever given. Her legs are empty of power but she forces them to lift her anyway. Her braid whips behind her in the winds caused by the release of the great spear as she rises to her full, absurd height to face it.

"When I kill you," she snarls, "I want you to remember every word you said to me. I will show you the difference between a prince and a king."

Empty words. Empty promises. Hate burns inside her, wrapped around the twin fire of shame. It doesn't matter. Every weapon in a warrior's arsenal is to be used. So she howls. Death before anything less is the height of shame.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Nothing ends tonight, child. Do not be so quick to claim the power of a past you yourself have rejected. There are always consequences for building your walls on a foundation you do not understand. After all..."

The tension in Saber's body unleashes all at once. Her sword lifts out of the ground, but not before it hefts a large chunk of rock up out of the soil and flings it at Archer. A simple trick, and easily deflected. But in the space of the motion required to counter it she has closed the distance and flashed her blade across his body three times.

"You mustn't forget: in this new world, your god is just as dead as mine!"

Having seen his mettle once already, Saber's cuts are cautious and the kind of uncommitted that is only possible with a huge, lanky body like hers. Her arms extend the reach of her blade in confounding ways even as she twists as if pulled by wings of her own, over and around and back through again. It sucks some of the power out of her blows but they are each enough to be lethal against an unskilled opponent. Archer is not unskilled, for all that his power is tied up in trickery and his petty bombardments. She draws blood, which she catches. She throws it at his eyes.

"You have taken the shrine I meant to burn. Victory is yours tonight. But you are trapped. Your master will not want to leave this spot again. They will know this power was not theirs to begin with, and now this place is known to innumerable enemies. You cannot leave it unguarded. Which trusted ally will you place as its guard? The wilting child-king? Or the tiny English? Surely you can trust the mettle of Southerners to safeguard your own power."

With a shark toothed grin and a kick to the head, she is gone. Huge, powerful strides carry her across the ground too fast for mortal eyes to follow. Though her path is obvious. Retreat without her Master at a minimum is nothing more than fancy suicide. Retreat toward the shrine is impossible when she has no time to breach its new defenses, and it is the first and only place she could go if her words carried the promise of assault. She will seek the woods, with Diaofei and the little dragon as her plunder if her arms are strong enough to manage it.

But there is danger in the air behind her. The shadows that had been flanking her across this entire exchange are missing...

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Her golden blade is dripping red now. And where crimson passes, luster peels away little by little. The privilege of a king is in weapons that glitter in the sunlight, in blades that win fights merely by being drawn. The duty of a king is to maintain that image of invincibility, even if it means she fights less than she had in her warrior's prime. It is a heavy burden, the duty to protect into tomorrow and the tomorrow beyond.

A Valkyrie has no use for these things. Steel is steel and even mystics are simply another shape of weapon. Let the runes remain, but for the sword leave only sharpness. Keep weight and good metal, well balanced, but however finely forged a warrior's weapon is ultimately replaceable. She must fight as such. Win victory, and know that at any point the tools she is called upon to use may change. The sword she cuts a throat with now may shatter in their spine, or a skilled opponent might wrench it from her fingers. The path of the valkyrie is to carry the projections of battle beyond mere skirmishes, all the way to the final battle at the end of everything if she can.

The tip of her sword is pitted black now. Cold iron, hard iron, star metal, who cares? Splotches at the edges carry the new color as well, and where the gold melts most the story written on the blade burns all the brighter. A moment later, it lifts up in her arm and points coolly in the direction of the angel. Saber tilts her head and watches him with bloodshot eyes.

"Are you what passes for my descendants, then? I need no longer wonder why my colors are not to be found amidst the ruins of the dead world. You may keep your praise, child of the White Christ. Slaughtering a thousand lambs like this would at best do me honor as a butcher. From where I stand the only one here to have fought a worthy opponent..."

Her massive body blurs as she lunges. There is nothing fancy in her overhead strike: its only purpose is to threaten the fox riding atop Archer, and to find out whether he will respond with power or with speed. Will he hold her off, or get out of the way? This alone motivates her.

"...Is you," she finishes.

It is cold praise, delivered like ice floating in the sea as she curves her spine and lurches out of the way of the followup attack. Her sword bites into the earth and she tenses herself against the hilt. Her body twists and holds, promising either danger or escape depending on what happens next but committing to neither.

"Give me Actia. That alone I ask. The wishing shard is no longer my concern, go take it if you think you can. But you shall only do so after I have had my vengeance. This I promise."

Breathless Dead

"What the... fuck?"

Bella's mouth hangs agape. Unsightly. Impolite. She has to close it. She must. Decorum demands at least this much. But surprise pulls her jaw apart for all she fights to wrench it closed. They knew this much? Their communion with the gods ran this deep? Then they had no use for her to begin with. Why ask? Why..?

Her body is so heavy. It drags her to the ground with the force and surety of a grav-rail assault. Her only act of rebellion is to fall on her side instead of her front. She curls into a ball, ready for death. The heat of her own organs broils her to be this compact; she snaps outward again almost immediately. Clutching, writhing, spine tensed so hard it curves backward, her claws dig into the dirt and she howls.

"S-shadow! Wa, water! Please, anything! It's so hot! Why?! To drag me this far just to! Aaaaah!"

She can feel her skin dry and blister already. Her lips crack painfully and her hands paw weakly at the ground beneath her. The sharpness of her claws is no longer enough to win against the soil with her fingers already this weak. All she can do is twist limply and let weight drop her on her back.

Bella gasps for air under the merciless light of the sun. She looks every way she can manage but nothing of the glittering edifice around her seems designed to block even the first wisp of light. What use have creatures such as these to cool off? What refreshment could they even offer her pitiful, inferior body? Apollo. Artemis. You. Hate her this much?

She cranes her neck from where she lies as her hair tangles and pulls underneath her to look up at the uncrowned king once more. The little puffs of air escaping from her heavy chest are pathetic. She cannot smell anything anymore. She can only taste dry. Can only feel heat. But she can see, and she can hear.

"It's not justice," she moans, "The gods already don't belong to me. I am not hiding Hermes. Nobody, nobody anywhere does. Ask the yellow robes. Ask the gods. They can't tell you. You really wanna know? Then look. Look at me. You'll see..."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Nobody is born a king. However short or straight their path to the crown there are always steps that must be walked first before they can wear it. It had been a king that Diaofei had called to, and it had been a king that she needed. But it was not a king that she wanted, and it was not a king that could mete vengeance the way the situation demanded.

The links on Saber's mail coat groan and snap from the inside out at the insistence of some unseen pressure. She walks her steps backwards now, to the time when her father had been murdered and she sailed with her brothers across the sea not to enrich themselves (not just that), but to choke the rivers of England with the blood of their damned. She did not don her armor until she wore the crown. She had no need of it when it pinched against her rough and spiny skin and got in the way of proper motion.

A king required armor because a king must fill her men's hearts with devotion and confidence. She had a duty to impress, and so she had. But before that, when there was no crown upon her head, her family had better uses for her misshapen body. It was the Great King's command that she wear no covering from her waist at any moment when a battle could be expected or a march was called for. It would have obstructed her true duty.

The armor crumbles from her body like a shed carapace. Underneath it was a wall of flesh, breasts mounted proudly atop iron, sinewy, stretched out muscle. Hard power and an unyielding body built long instead of wide, with every last centimeter of her flesh covered in intricate, jagged runes: crossing diamonds and instructions written in spirals in the language of her people. For in life, Saber was a living map. It had been allowed of her that she could join in the thrill of battle for herself, because any idiot could see that she was a match for any man alive. But her true duty had been the role of the Valkyrie for those not yet dead. The guide that led the armies of Ragnar Lodbrok to destiny and deeds worthy of admission to the halls beyond the gate of death.

Saber's smile is truly hideous. Her laughter is the insane barking of the aggrieved hunter finally confronted with the beast they've been chasing. Yapping Master and dragon still pinned atop her shoulders, she leaps toward the figures in shadow with speed and zeal that surpasses simple recklessness. The idea that she could fail in a scrap with mere assassins simply does not occur to her. If they shoot a bolt she will dodge it. If she cannot, she will survive it. If her Master dies she will simply find a way to continue existing without her. In this moment everything is about blood.

Her runes shine like beacons as she pounces, and the shadows still consuming her body leap off of her skin at their guidance. The vague shape of men, great brutish beasts of men both smaller than her and much more stockily built, constructed half of light and half of darkness take shape to either side of her, swinging grand swords shaped for cutting mountains about like they were toys.

"Our mighty father lies dead," she intones, "Brothers! We go now to war!"

This is the first of her noble phantasms. She invokes it without consideration of the cost. Together they descend like a pack of wolves, gnashing and tearing shadows to bloody bits without a thought toward decorum, safety, or self gain. All is vengeance. That was the privilege of the uncrowned.

Breathless Dead

"I apologize. That is, uh, I'm sorry," Bella's tongue is sandpaper and ash, "Your first, mmmmf. Sorry. Your first request is something I can't do. I mean I must respectfully decline."

Her voice sounds even farther away than the uncrowned king and their entourage. Like she has to push it through a wad of cotton to start with, only for it to drop on the air in leaden bubbles. Breathing is, somehow, worse. The sensation of heat entering her lungs is nauseating. Hot in, hot out, her own breath feels sticky before she can even exhale. The smell makes it worse; each little sniff loses more and more of what makes the planet seem alive to her and replaces it with the pungent tang of her own misery. Bella's own sweat is a particularly miserable cocktail that triggers her same maid's aversion to blood.

She has to fight to keep her hand from clenching over her mouth. That would be unseemly, conduct unbecoming of a praetor. It wouldn't even help what with the smell coming from her own body: her hand would just press it further into her. She grits her teeth, invisibly, and sways on the spot instead. She must not wobble. She must not raise a hand to steady herself. She keeps both hands tucked demurely in front of her in her least aggressive posture, and carries the weight of an empire on her back as she burns.

"Please understand," her voice is not only distant now, but weak, "I'm not trying to waste your time. It's not that I don't trust you, either. But communication isn't possible at a distance. And the crossing... would kill you. Please just. Trust me."

Bella tries to swallow, but her mouth is so parched the gesture simply catches on the back of her throat instead and she has to turn her head to hide the sudden retching as a more mundane cough. It's not pride at this point, the standing on ceremony for a delegation she can't even see in detail through all the haze in the air anymore. It's simply decorum. Before she was a praetor she was a maid, and ahead of any other duties they may have stapled onto her her first and most sacred would always be to the comfort and ease of guests before herself. It was the lesson beaten into her most sharply as a little girl, the lessons begun before she'd even finished learning how to speak.

She does not ask for a drink. Her body begs her to, but she ignores it. Is this... punishment? Is this scalding heat mere divine displeasure, or was the sickness of the sun her special torment in death for all the many harms she'd caused before she'd been so unceremoniously snuffed out? Fuck. You could have simply left her on the Yakanov, Lord Apollo, if this was really what you wanted for her. She dips into a curtsy rather than another bow, because letting her knees obey the siren call of gravity seems easier all of a sudden. She just has to. She just has to.. She just has to...

"M-my name's... Bella. I didn't come to make trouble. Please. I want-- I nnnnnneed, sssshhhhhhttttthhhggt!"

It is not enough. The power of the Empire is not enough. The precision of her training is not enough. Bella's ears droop flat on her head and her tail flags low against the ground. Her posture is terrible. Her body is sweat soaked, plastered fur and white fabrics so drenched they have become invisible, clinging highlights to every imaginable mystery of her physique. Her mouth glistens with the fresh purge of her own misery as her legs threaten to topple her down to the ground to wallow in it. Beljani, is this what your cage felt like? When you burned your way into the minds of so many around you, did it feel like this? When they forced you on the bed and stuffed you till you couldn't help but feel aware of every crevice of your body, did that feel like this? How did you stand it?

Sister. Where did you go, Sister? Why can't she see you again? Why can't she, oh gods. Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods she can't take this. Please. Make it stop, make it stop! What did she do? She's sorry! She's sorry! Please, just! A drink, a fan, a bit of shade, anything! Just don't trap her like this! Don't keep her like this! Don't...

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Oh enough!"

The amount of information disparity in this war bordered on a joke. In her own day it was simple: you boarded a ship, sailed to a new coast, and attacked the nearest settlement from the sea. No one ever saw it coming. And if they did you simply circled around behind them on land and killed them then. It was possible, even easy, to run down huge swaths of a kingdom in a single raid despite whatever nation you were invading having far more soldiers than you ever could. All it took was a willingness to fight when others wouldn't, and even more than that a willingness to run until you were where they weren't.

But this? Absurd! Her own father would quiver at the prospect of this war. All of the great heroes that had been summoned were already in alignment against her before she'd even been allowed to show up! The strongest last, that was the rule of the ritual, but even still how could they have organized this much? Eyes everywhere, watching them. An utter impossibility. Her every move known before she even settles on making it. One trap closes around her and it launches a second and a third by triggering as if the whole thing were some overdesigned machine with no purpose other than the death of the Saber class Servant. Who had ever heard of such a hollow mockery of a war? Was that simply how things were done these days?

Her own 'allies' were either sniveling or naive beyond the point of uselessness. There was no more time to let them debate the particulars of how many among them were marked for death. Saber catches Diaofei under the butt with her boot and flips her up into the air, leaping just enough to catch her on top of the dragon she is already carrying. There is no time to drop either of them. She lands, and her legs bow under the combined weight. But she holds. She is strong enough to move, and quickly.

Her first step is toward the Kun shrine, but a tug from the shadows crawling across her body makes her flinch. In that instant the great vehicle is snapped in half under Archer's artillery barrage. She pivots, and sprints away from both shrines instead. Toward the unknown. Doubtless, toward the next part of the trap. Irrelevant. She cannot die until she kills Actia.

"If either of you lets go," she snarls, "I'll kill you on the spot. You will wish this rain fell on you instead."