"Relative Safety"
Septum
It had been about fifteen minutes since they'd escaped from the Plagued Knight.
At the mouth of the alleyway a few miles east of the scene of the battle, at the very end of the complex of alleyways leading off from the one they'd entered, Beatrice slumped against the wall as she disengaged her reinforcements. Her lungs and circuits burnt as she took deep breaths, sweat tricking down her forehead.
"God FUCKING DAMN IT," She suddenly yelled out, her face flashing from tired to flat-out pissed off as she suddenly directed a punch at the floor of the alley; without her reinforcements, however, it was pointless. A moment passed and she just grunted to herself in frustration as she lifted up her hand from the floor, knuckles bruised and bloody from the force with which she'd brought it down upon the rough stone.
"Master..."
Saber shifted her unsteady gaze to her Master's bleeding hand with a concerned expression on her face. Instead of saying more, however, she slowly pulled herself to her feet and staggered to where her Master was slumped.
Rather than face Beatrice, Saber stared quietly upwards at the tiny fragment of sky visible from the alleyway. She felt a familiar tingling in the back of her head, and suddenly looked down at her Master in panic.
"We have to move, Master-" Before she could finish, however, Saber wavered on her feet and collapsed onto the ground next to Beatrice.
Beatrice hadn't been paying all that much attention to Saber before now; a look of frustration was clear on her face as she slumped against the wall in fatigue. Given her lack of speech, it was easy enough to assume she was frustrated with her Servant- but nonetheless, as the blonde took a tumble to the floor and laid collapsed next to her, she couldn't help but jolt upwards slightly from the sudden shock and turn her attention to Saber.
"For God's sake," She muttered to herself as she grabbed ahold of Saber's arm, pulling her up to her feet as she herself rose from her slump, reaching out another arm to stabilize the Servant as they went, "This was a goddamn disaster."
Her tone was harsh, and as before, it was easy enough to interpret as being directed towards Saber; but whatever the case, Beatrice didn't seem to dwell on it and instead just supported Saber as they left the alley. A slight increase in the prana drain from herself to Saber had appeared; and she didn't feel very reassured by that.
"Fuck it, let's go get something to eat," She said, seemingly oblivious to anything Saber did or said as they went.
Several minutes later
'...This sound is...?'
Saber's eyes fluttered open confusedly, causing her to wince in pain at the brightness of her surroundings. She paused, listening to her surroundings while she waited for her squinting eyes to adjust to the light. In the distance, she could hear the occasional clanking of china, accompanied by the noise of running water. A...kitchen? We must be home, Saber thought to herself. Just in time, she heard a familiar voice from directly beside her-
"Oh, you're awake now," A tired voice chipped in from off to the side, from a fuzzy figure with a red head, "You've been out for a while. Have a nice nap?"
The figure- no, Beatrice seemed to be holding a cup with a sweet-smelling brown liquid inside of it, her eyes and the way she was sitting in her chair making it plain that she was tired and annoyed.
Groaning and struggling into a more dignified sitting position, Saber took a dazed look at her Master and asks stupidly, "Are you...okay?"
"Totally fucking fine," Beatrice replied with a sigh, sarcasm blatant in her tone before she pressed on with- "Not sure about you, though. Whatever that son of a bitch back there was, fighting him must have taken a hell of a lot out of you."
Saber let out a sigh of relief, before dizzily looking around at what she had thought was her Master's home. Visibly confused, she drew her gaze unsteadily across the room and its occupants, momentarily unable to comprehend what she was seeing...
"...Master? Where are we...?"
"Well, after you collapsed, I dragged your ass to a cafe. Figured we could use something to eat." Beatrice said with a shrug, taking a swig of her drink before setting it back down on the table.
If Saber was to focus in on the surroundings, she'd see a very plain cafe; metal tables with wooden chairs, glass over an assortment of cakes and pastries, and a few people working away behind the counter. None of whom seemed fazed at all by the previously-unconscious girl in armour or the woman with the sheathed longsword and heavy packs.
"...I see."
Without saying another word, Beatrice made a gesture to a waitress who was making her way back to the counter after attending to another group of people; and sent her off to get Saber a glass of water a moment later.
"Once you've had the water, order whatever you want. Got enough money to cover anything here, don't worry about running me dry or anything."
".......I...see..."
Saber wavered slightly on her seat, foreshadowing what was about to happen for the third time that night. Then, this time noticeably more softly than before, she teetered over to her side, her head landing accurately onto her Master's lap. She had not fallen unconscious, rather she had fallen asleep sitting up.
Beatrice just stared at her Servant as she gave into exhaustion for the third time, and sighed as her head landed softly on her lap.
'Couldn't make it up if you tried,' she thought to herself, a slight red tint appearing on her cheeks as she just let the tired girl sleep, and as the waitress just quietly dropped off the glass of water at their table.