Diary of a Montreal Shopping Trip
By Brent Laabs
By Brent Laabs
Chapter 1: Ante Meridiem
Montréal, QC, Canada
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Artoria Pendragon, summoned to be Shirou Emiya's Saber, was up on the roof training for a war she dearly wished for, but was indefinitely delayed. A Grail War couldn't happen, not with the wyrd placed upon herself and the other servants, not here.
But now she was stuck here, with no battles to worry about, no goals to meet, no quests to seek and pursue. No peasants to assign to fields, no patricians to cozy up to, no armies to feed. No friends to talk to, but that wasn't a new state of affairs. Not since she lost those two. It wouldn't make sense to befriend those she might one day need to kill, if it ever started up again, and then find herself unable to do it.
So she found herself stuck in her own thoughts. To keep herself from going mad, raking herself across the coals of the past, or bracing against phantom winds of the future, she focused on being in the present, on establishing something that resembled her old routine.
So she stood atop the apartment's flat roof under the morning sunshine, and swung a found wooden broom handle through the cool breeze to quiet her mind. It wasn't working particularly well, though you couldn't tell that by looking at her. But with a real, living body rather than a magical construct, at least she was getting good exercise.
She didn't use her own sword, since she didn't want to reveal it — or anything about it, not even its weight – to the nearby prying eyes. Which she was sure there were. Indeed, Archer had spent the last couple of minutes watching her cut imaginary targets with a stick. She presumed he was investigating her, and pretended not to notice. But his reasons were much simpler than that, though Saber wouldn't have believed them: he looked at her out of admiration, along with good helping of the normal reasons for the male gaze.
After a few moments passed, he said, "Saber! The manager is looking for you."
"Oh?"
"She wants to take us shopping for new clothing today, remember? You're coming, right? Everyone else is." Archer asked.
She turned towards the tall, prematurely gray-haired man, thinking about her answer. Artoria was a veteran of the past Grail War, so it did make some sense to join, if only to to scope out her competition. Any clothes would do, but she could certainly do with more than those on her back. "Of course."
"Good. We're leaving in an hour. Just enough time for you to get ready," he said, right before he hopped back down into the apartment's courtyard.
How impertinent, she thought, a Servant is always ready! And then she took stock of herself, smelled under her own arm, and decided that she needed a shower. Servants with magical construct bodies might be ready at a moment's notice, but in this universe she had a real human body, and it came with its own positives and negatives.
A moment later, Saber followed with her own leap into the courtyard. Cassiopée Bright, the apartment manager, caught sight of her out of the corner of her eye, muttering, "Tabernac!" The shock wouldn't last, though. Over the next few weeks, she got accustomed to a certain resident leaping three stories like it was a totally normal thing to do, and would barely gave it a second thought.
At the appointed time, everyone assembled, and walked the half-kilometre or so down-slope to an entrance to Montreal's Underground City, a network of tunnels connecting buildings and shops. Collectively, they form one of the world's largest shopping malls, with an ever-changing design aesthetic depending on which building they were under.
The tunnels are a lifeline for the city in the cold winter months, but on a cool but pleasant morning like this one, no one really minded being outside. It was a good deal warmer than the winter in Japan the participants of the Grail War had just left behind — if slightly disconcerting to see the leaves of maple trees just starting to fall, for a second time in a row.
"RÉZO, the Red Mall," said Shirou, as he rode the escalator down.
"No," corrected Cassiopée, "RÉSO the underground mall. Though a lot of the shops are actually above ground. Anyway, I know a few boutiques where we can start out, but I want you all to be on the lookout for new clothing. Especially you, Archer, you look like a cosplayer in that coat."
"She's wearing a flashy red coat too," Archer muttered.
Rin countered, "But mine is fashionable."
"Just so. Though you won't need it inside."
Inside were a host of stores, selling clothing, linens, electronics, jewellery, beauty products, and food, on different levels, above and below ground. The corridors were wide and mostly straight, with the underground passageways intended to provide for foot traffic over a long distance, connected to multiple metro stations. Rin had visited the shops crowded beneath Shinjuku Station, but those were best described as "a twisty maze of little passages", not like these walkways.
The servants were the most impressed by the building, having never visited any indoor shopping malls before. Even the idea of pre-made clothing in particular sizes was novel, but it made the whole affair much more fun. Instead of relying on the skills of one's tailor, one could just try on the outfits to see how they looked. True to her word, Cassiopée led them to some of her favourite places.
The problem was that many of her favourite places were a bit too expensive for the group's budget, allotted by Funtom for Cassiopée to manage. That was no matter, as trying a garment out was free. Sakura, in particular, seemed to enjoy using Rider as a dress-up doll. The outfits Sakura chose for her were all over the map — formal gowns, riding leather, punk chic — the only common thread was that Rider had the figure to pull them off, where Sakura's short, flat frame meant that she had to stick to simpler, more covered up outfits. Which was fine for the upcoming winter.
Saber, fortunately, had Shirou Emiya as a master, and the men spent the lion's share of the morning in various menswear sections, and not dressing her up. Saber tried picking out her own wardrobe, but it didn't really bring her the joy it did the other girls, and she didn't really trust her own taste. Of course, Rin and Cassiopée picked up the slack, and dispatched Artoria to a changing room to try out various outfits for their approval.
After trying on a few dresses that didn't quite fit, Saber stepped out of the changing room, wearing a royal blue evening gown, high-cut and backless save for two straps, with a cutout below the breasts and plenty of space for necklaces above.
"Wow, you sure clean up nice!" Rin remarked.
"Whoa. I'm going to have to work a little to compete with that," Medea commented.
"Are you sure this is appropriate dress for me? Perhaps a simple tunic or two would suffice until we resume battle—"
"No good! Saber, you need to keep up with modern fashion or you'll let everyone else get ahead. Not that I'm helping you in the Grail War, understand? I just can't have you looking like a fashion victim."
Caster noted, "As Heraclitus said, 'Everything changes, nothing stands still'."
Artoria relented, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."[1]
"Rome?" Medea asked, "Where's that? Good quote, though."[2]
Cassiopée split off from the men — who, unsurprisingly, needed the most help — to check on the women. "C'est magnifique, Sabre! I see I'm not truly needed over here. But alas, I think you should concentrate on everyday wear. And something a little warmer than that, with winter just around the corner."
"Hey! That looks too good on her to leave it on the rack." Rin protested.
Cassiopée tugged at Artoria's sleeve, and glanced at the tag. After a moment of thinking, she pronounced, "Of course, it would be a crime for her not to take it home. Carry on!"
Medea instantly picked up a dark violet velvet dress off a rack, and carried it into a dressing room in her attempt to outclass Saber. Something about that woman reminded her of Morgan — on second thought, most everything about that woman reminded her of Morgan.
Rider seemed relatively uninterested in going that route, instead asking, "What do people wear now when riding horses?"
Rin led her over to the jeans section, populated with long trousers made of a durable weave called denim predominantly in blue. After a bit of back and forth, Rin managed to convince Rider to purchase some form-fitting jeans with rips already included in between the seams and joints, ultimately with the words, "Just trust me!"
Saber selected some jeans that looked more practical and brand new, that had been richly and uniformly dyed with woad.[3] She knew that hardly anyone rode horses in this future era, but as a king she should have the option to be a cavalier, and that obviously meant not wearing garments that could belong to a pauper. Even if the ripped jeans were more expensive, and somehow more fashionable, Saber's dignity was worth more.
Sakura seemed to favour dignity as well, as all of the outfits she chose seemed quite conservative and feminine, or so Saber thought, based on her own observations from the previous Grail War, for what little they were worth. Of course, with winter coming, it made sense to cover up, but on the other hand, Sakura had no problem dressing up Rider in all sorts of showy costumes. Well, that was perhaps not so odd for a girl of her age. People never really change, even across the millennia.
Saber was quite right that Sakura had body issues, but as she learned later, quite wrong about the reason for them.
The party moved on to a different building, passing through the hallways below ground to reach a smaller boutique clothing store, on Cassiopée's recommendation.
Kuzuki-sensei trudged behind Caster, dutifully holding all of her purchases. Shirou saw this, so he offered Artoria, "Can I take your bags?"
"No, thank you. I can take your bags if you like," Saber offered in return.
"A girl shouldn't have to carry everything, Saber. I can carry them—"
"I am your servant, you should rely on me instead."
Another voice chimed in, "Here you go, I thought you were never going to ask," Rin said while jamming her purchases into Shirou's hands.
"Thanks, senpai!" Sakura smiled as she placed another set of plastic bags of clothing into his unsuspecting hands. "You're a gentleman."
He eventually shook off the dumbfounded look from his face, and returned her smile. "So it turned out this way, huh? No problem." At this, Archer just tsked at Shirou. "What?" he asked with a bit of irritation.
"Oh nothing. Perhaps you want to carry my clothes as well?" Archer suggested innocently.
"Oh come on, do it yourself!"
Once they found the store, Cassiopée realized that there was nothing in there for the men, and decided to lead them on a ways further to a bigger department store, leaving the women behind. They were too absorbed in the fashion to pay much notice to her absence.
"How about this coat, Saber? Doesn't it look très chic?" Rin held it up in front of her chest, so she could see it reflected in the store's full-length mirror: a white wool coat, piped with sea green trim and large, shiny gold buttons.
She thought about it, and supposed that it was flattering on her. More flattering than it would be on Rin herself, with her darker hair and complexion. And somehow less feminine than Rin's wardrobe. The whole morning was proof of Rin's fashion sense.
Artoria had no idea of the local fashion sense, but it didn't matter too much. She liked it. She stared at the mirror and, with the smallest of smiles, decided, "This will be acceptable."
"Oooh, high praise!" Rin teased. It was high praise from Saber, after all. "Let's find a few dresses to match."
Cassiopée, "And she'll need a winter coat; that one will only be warm enough for the autumn."
Certainly, if there were a Grail War of fashion, Rin and Cassiopée would be battling it out, and they'd all be left in the dust. Just like war, fashion is eternal, and some people are just better at it.
If Artoria had had some knowledge of local fashion provided by the Grail's magic that summoned her, it was lost to her now. All of that synthetic knowledge was lost. She could figure out some things from gift of language that had been bestowed upon her. She had seen Cassiopée pay for some items with a small card, which she somehow knew as called a credit card. And she knew that "credit" was a loan taken from a "bank", and banks were something of a treasury. She could learn just from following the threads of words in her head.
Fashion, however, was opaque to such methods. People looked somewhat different than what she remembered of Japan, but not so different as to feel like a different era. Honestly it was so weird that there was so little difference between dress on the other side of the world — men's styles in particular seemed remarkably uniform.
And yet, there were still ways for the men to fail. When they left to rejoin the men, they found they should perhaps not be left to their own devices. "Now we need to find Kuzuki-sen–" Rin paused, and raised her voice, "Hey Emiya, put that back. It's not going to work. No, not you Archer... actually yes, you too, both of you are hopeless."
On the bottom level of the Centre Eaton, the tunnel opened up into a food court. Now, this wasn't the type of court that Artoria was expecting, having no courtiers or lord. It resembled, more than anything, the chaotic scene surrounding the food wagons on market day, where commoners would gather to partake in a warm meal before returning to field or farm. But it did resemble a court in one important way: it was a place where people of many cultures would come and feast together.
From one of the side entrances, a young man with a high forehead and glasses called out, "Cassiopée!"
"Ah, Grahame! Glad you could make it!" They met and shared a quick peck on the lips. "You need to shave!"
"I only made it because your text woke me up. No, I'm fine, I just needed to catch up on sleep a bit." The past week had been spent in crunch — in fact, pretty much every week was 'crunch time' these days, as their game crawled its way through development hell.
"My love, they need to take better care of you."
"I can't argue with that. It looks like you're faring better than me at work."
Cassiopée related, "Oh, it has its challenges, but shopping has been rewarding so far." She reached into her bag, pulling up an article, "I found this lovely two-piece–"
"Save it, I'd much prefer to see you wearing it first."
She grinned, "All right!" then turned from her spouse to face everyone else. "Okay, there are a lot of choices here, so everyone can pick out something they like. Let's meet back up in a few minutes." She handed a few bills out to everyone, enough for them to pay for their own food, and went off with Grahame to pick up some pad Thai.
Saber was, at this point, more confused than she had been all day. The paper money was odd, sure, but money had been around in different forms since before civilization, and it was clearly marked in value.
No, it was all of these unknown options. The amount of choice here was bewildering. There was Italian food — they seemed to be as crazy about tomatoes now as they had been about garum back in the old days. The Greek restaurant had foods that Medea didn't appear to recognize, like gyros. And places that were even further out, like Thai, Korean, or Mexican, whoever those people were. Artoria knew that India and China existed, but had no idea what people actually ate there, aside from a few spices. The Chinese food seemed somewhat like the food she saw in Japan, based on the rice, at least.
And none of them claimed to be a British food place, which wasn't terribly surprising.
Variety like this, she had never been offered in any court before. "Does anything sound good to you, Saber?" Shirou asked. He seemed to realize that she was at a loss.
"Whatever you think is best. Perhaps... something simple."
"Simple, huh? I'll try my best."
"I will remain here, and secure us proper seating." She did just that, walking around the centre of the court until she found a large, circular table which could host the entire group. She sat down to claim it, and found herself in a metal chair which wobbled unevenly with her weight — un siège petit périlleux. She moved to another chair.
Cassiopée and Grahame soon joined her, with container of noodles that smelled spicy, though Saber thought she caught a hint of something that smelled a little like garum in there too. Caster, Rider and Soichirou tried the lamb gyros, which Caster quite enjoyed, but Rider felt lacked some authenticity as Greek food. Sakura had one of her cravings for raw meat, and picked up a mix of sushi and sashimi. Rin and Archer were feeling more adventurous, and tried out some tacos. Rin liked them well enough, but Archer made an offhand remark, "Well, I guess we can't expect too much, this far north."
With no meshiya offering simple Japanese food, Shirou decided to go with sandwich shop fare, picking up couple of sandwiches and bags of potato chips for each of them. "Which do you want, turkey or ham?"
"Hmm. Ham, please." She would only find out later that he had in fact managed to bring her modern-day British cuisine. She took a bite, and found the ham shared the bread with cheese, fresh vegetables, and a tangy mustard. Not bad. Many of the foods on their table today used bread to allow one to hold the food cleanly, which she thought was a pretty neat invention. She aped Shirou as he opened his small bag of crisps, and tried it. Ooh, salty, crunchy, starchy!
Then she noticed that Shirou's bag of chips bore the writing "sour cream and onion" Why those foods?
Shirou noticed her staring, so he explained, "I didn't know what flavour you wanted, so I just got plain ones for you."
"There are flavours?"
"Here, try one." She took the thin slice of potato from his hand, and placed it in her mouth. It was like the first one, but with a bit of milkiness, and a kick of onion. She liked onions. Very nice!
Sakura saw this, stared at his little bag of chips, and then gave Emiya the puppy dog eyes. "You too?" he said.
"Ahwwn," she intoned, her mouth open. He deposited a potato chip therein, much like a priest with a communion wafer.
Rin said, "So this is what you get up to without Sensei at your meals, Emiya-kun?"
"I mean..."
"Eh?"
Shirou offered, "You want one too?"'
"Flirt." She turned her face away, to the other end of the table. The view didn't get much better though.
Caster said, "Aren't you going to offer me a bite of yours, darling?"
"We both have the same thing," Souichirou replied, confused.
"So?" He didn't react, so Medea pressed on, pita in hand, "Here, I'll give you a bite of mine first, and we'll be even!"
Rin expected better of her high school teacher, so she called across the table, "Missus Manager, can you please do something about hormone central over here?"
Cassiopée replied simply, "Honestly, I doubt it."
- BL: This quote is attributed to St. Ambrose, which should make it old enough for Saber to have known. We're assuming that Artoria comes from sub-Roman Britain, c. 500, rather than the time of high chivalry c. 1100.
- BL: The Argonauts sailed before the Trojan war, a few centuries before "ab urbe condita" reckoning. Even if you accept the theory that Romulus was Aeneas's grandson, Rome would still be founded two or three generations after Medea's time, c. 1150 BC. That said, the archaeology indicates still earlier settlement, most continuously on the Capitoline Hill — but still only amounting to an unremarkable backwater set of hilltop villages outside of the Greek sphere.
- BL: Britons were once known to paint their skins with woad, mixed from a dye which makes the same pigment as indigo. Today, the same dye, produced synthetically, is mainly used to dye blue jeans.