2016-09-24: Dragged along by a strange new force
10-17-2024, 05:54 PM (This post was last modified: 10-18-2024, 09:09 AM by robkelk.)
10-17-2024, 05:54 PM (This post was last modified: 10-18-2024, 09:09 AM by robkelk.)
Dragged along by a strange new force
by Rob Kelk, incorporating ideas from Brent Laabs and Robert M. Schroeck
I am dragged along by a strange new force. Desire and reason are pulling in different directions. I see the right way and approve it, but follow the wrong
– Attributed to Medea of Colchis by Jonathan Haidt, in The happiness hypothesis : finding modern truth in ancient wisdom (2006)[1]
Appartements Mont-Royal Sud, Montréal, QC, Canada
September 24, 2016
8:05 AM ET
It was a Saturday, and none of the newcomers to Montréal – or to Refuge as a whole – felt any strong desire to mingle with strangers yet. So they mingled with each other, and with their building manager... but not her husband.
"This is the third Saturday in a row you've gone to work," Cassiopée Bright complained.
"It can't be helped, Cassie," her husband Grahame said. "We need to have something ready to send to the beta testers, and soon. You get to talk casually with video game characters; I have to spend most of the weekend debugging a video game. I think you got the better deal, ma chérie." He gave her a kiss, readjusted his glasses, and headed out. "I'll call if I can get out early, but don't wait dinner for me if I can't."
She looked at the door that closed behind him and sighed deeply. "I won't, mon chéri." Then, having nothing better to do when alone on a weekend, she turned to her own work of reading through her copies of the documents Belldandy had left with her the day before. She walked from her kitchen to her home-office, took the stack of files about her residents out of her filing cabinet, carried them over to her desk, and sat down and started reading through them. As long as Vár was her contact in Heaven, she couldn't switch from paper files to electronic files, as much as she wanted to.
After a long moment, she heard the door open. "Did you forget something, Grahame?"
"I'm sorry, I'm not Grahame," Shirou Emiya said. "Who is Grahame?"
"My husband. He's gone to work, to spend his Saturday with Imperial Stormtroopers instead of with me. Please, Shirou, come in." She motioned to one of the chairs in her office.
"I still haven't met your husband. Does he work for Lucasfilm?" Shirou asked as he walked into the building manager's office and sat down.
"No, Grahame is a game designer. He doesn't work for LucasArts, either; he's with a small company called Motive Studios who has been hired to write a shooting game for the setting.[2] As for why he's working on a Saturday, they're getting close to the scheduled release date and they still haven't sent anything to beta testers."
"It's too bad that I don't know more about video games. I doubt that I can help him."
Cassiopée smiled at Shirou's comment. "I'm here to help you and your friends, not the other way around. But thank you. Speaking of helping you," she held up the file that she had started about him, "don't ask me how, but Belldandy managed to get you into an English-language high school..."[3]
8:57 AM ET
"As Anaxagoras said, the Greeks follow a wrong usage in speaking of coming into being and passing away; for nothing comes into being or passes away, but there is mingling and separation of things that are. Now, Anaxagoras wasn't the most accurate of the presocratic philosophers," Caster said, "but in this case his ideas, taken metaphorically, have some merit. We are definitely mingling with two very different people than the ones that we're used to serving: Cassiopée and Grahame. I assume the other people in this city are like them."
"They aren't that different from the Masters that we're used to," Archer told his fellow Heroic Spirit. They were both sitting in the living room of the apartment that Archer and Shirou shared, and he had introduced her to the taste of coffee. Each of the Servants was on their second mugful. "They have hopes and dreams of their own, they work, they love, and I assume they cry on occasion. What's with the philosophy, by the way?"
"Am I not allowed to have a hobby?" she asked in return, one eyebrow arched.
"Not during a Grail War... but we aren't doing that right now, are we?"
"Thanks to Verðandi's edict, we are not 'doing that right now', no," she replied, conveniently forgetting to mention that she had indulged her hobby while resting from building her underground temple back in Fuyuki City. "I suggest that you find a hobby of your own, since we will not be spending all of our time fighting and killing each other."
He took a drink of his coffee before replying. "Right, right. You've been so sure of yourself ever since the first time I met you, you know."
She smiled and chuckled... which sounded ominous because of how low-pitched her voice was. "Yes, I know. But I have so much to be sure of." Then she stopped smiling. "My mug is empty. Again."
"You'd better not have any more. That stuff'll keep you awake all night if you aren't used to it."
9:33 AM ET
Rider knew why Sakura had called her to become her Servant even if her Master did not. The two of them had much in common, even though the young woman didn't know it.
She knew what it was like to have been raped, and to have been punished for having been raped. Rider – Medusa – had been punished by being turned into a monster. From what little she had learned between being summoned and being displaced to this reality, Sakura's punishment was... more of the same.
But no more. Sakura's stepbrother had not accompanied them to this world. And, if it was within Rider's power, nobody would take his place. She had been summoned to fight for her Master; as she looked out of her bedroom window, she vowed that she would carry out her duty even if there was no Grail War in progress.
9:44 AM ET
Two of the newcomers to Montréal felt no great desire to mingle with the other displacees, either; the other Heroic Spirits were as much strangers to them as the people outside the apartment building were. So they ended up talking with each other. They were sitting at the table in the kitchen of their shared apartment, drinking tea that one of them didn't like because it was brewed from a teabag, and looking out the window at the apartment buildings' rooftop courtyard. The complex had been built as three buildings, but they were so close together that Funtom Property Management had turned them into a single residence above the ground floor.
"I was hoping to be the one to summon a Saber, specifically you," Rin admitted to the Noble Spirit in question, "but I got an Archer instead. A stuck-up, cocksure Archer, at that. How'd Emiya get to summon you?"
"I suppose that he benefited from the fortunes of war," she replied before sipping at her tea.
"It was luck?"
"Anyone who denies the existence of luck in battle is merely playing a game. Luck, like combat, isn't fair, but it happens and only a fool would deny its effect."
10:26 AM ET
Caster and Rider were in the living room of Caster's apartment, which had a view of the laundromat across the road and no curtains to block that view. It also had three bookcases with no books... yet... and two less-than-comfortable chairs which were all they had to sit on at the time. There was also a desk in the corner of the room, where a computer that neither woman knew how to use sat idle. But neither complained; the lodgings compared well with what they were used to back when they were people instead of Heroic Spirits.
"As Democritus said, wisdom frees the soul from passions," Caster pointed out.
"Then let me never become wise," Rider replied, "for I am a woman of my passions." Both women were speaking Mycenaean Greek, which was predominant during Medusa's time and still used a century later during Medea's lifetime.
"And look at what passions got you. Nobody but me remembers the stories about the horse-breeder that you used to be, Mae Gorgo." Both women smiled at Caster's use of the name on Rider's identity papers in this world. "They all remember the monster that Athena turned you into."
"That wasn't my fault!"
Caster held up a hand to interrupt Rider. "Oh, I'm well aware of that. It was my following my own passions that lead me to kill my children instead of letting the oath-breaker that I had married have them. Even now I'm surprised that I didn't suffer the wrath of the gods for my kin-killing."
"We're women. Who cares what we do? Not the gods, that's certain. Besides, weren't you acting in the place of the Furies and punishing Jason?"
"It would be hubris of the worst sort for me to assume I was the gods' agent, especially in a case of kin-killing. In both my children's and your cases, they and you paid the price for someone else's passions. And I must not allow that to happen again. I must become and remain wise."
Rider thought for a moment. "I admit that your chosen path is worth following, for you. Even so, I would not want to follow that path. I'll grant that I like reading, but I don't take that hobby to your extreme. I'm a person who needs physical attainments, not just mental stimulation."
11:12 AM ET
"Shiro," Cassiopée asked, "would you help me make lunch for everyone?"
"Certainly," he replied. Then he asked, "Bright-san, wasn't your hair brown yesterday?"
"Oh, that. I was trying out a different look. This is my natural colour," she said while gesturing to her now-black hair.
11:14 AM ET
Sakura didn't want to leave her apartment. Or her bed.
Not because she didn't want to meet anyone, although that thought wasn't completely wrong. It was more that she felt like she wasn't allowed to do something the previous night... but all she had done was sleep.
And dream. Strange dreams about somebody called Gauri,[4] and frustrating dreams where she couldn't do what she knew she needed to do... but she didn't know what that was.
At least her stepbrother Shinji hadn't visited her that night. She realized that, as long as she was in Montreal,<!-- Typesetting note: No accent on the e; they aren't fluent in French yet --> he never would.
And that gave her pause. She looked at the bare wall of her bedroom, but didn't really see it. She was lost in her thoughts.
Shinji had done things to her. Things that she didn't want to do with him, or anyone else because she was a proper Yamato nadeshiko and didn't do that kind of thing... except that Shinji made her do that kind of thing. And maybe she did want to do that kind of thing ever since she met Shirou. Could she do those things with Shirou? Would he want her that way? Or any other way?
She knew that she wanted him.
Maybe that way, maybe not that way. And she caught herself sliding her hand under the covers. Sakura stopped herself before she started; she was a proper Yamato nadeshiko, after all.
She knew that she didn't want anyone else to have him. Not even her Servant, Rider.
She had to leave her apartment. She needed to find Shirou, and make sure he wasn't with anyone who wasn't her.
And with that, Sakura finally got out of bed – nearly stumbling because it was higher off the floor than any bed she'd ever slept in back in Japan – and got dressed.
She had a boyfriend to find.
And to protect from the other girls in the building. Shirou was her boyfriend, not anybody else's.
Noon ET
"Lunch is served," Cassiopée announced as Shirou brought out the first bowls of the tonkatsu ramen that the two of them had prepared. The aroma of the pork broth filled the bistro's air.
"Ladies first," he said as he placed the bowls in front of Rin and Sakura, which brought a smile to the latter girl's face. "That's something they do here." He went back to the kitchen for more bowls as Cassiopée headed behind the bistro's bar.
"It's time for the news," she explained as she switched on the large-screen television... but didn't see the show that she expected.
"It's about time you turned this thing on," the person in the show said, before stepping through the screen and hovering just above the bar. "These big screens are great for moving through. Hi there, I'm Belldandy's sister Urd."
"One of the Norns?" Shirou asked while bringing two more bowls of ramen out of the kitchen. Placing them at Saber and Cassiopée's seats, he turned to pay full attention to the dark-skinned megami. "Will you be staying for lunch?"
Urd shook her head. "It would be nice if I could, but I have to get back to Heaven soon. We've got another group like you folks who are on their way to Disney World, and I need to be ready in case something goes wrong. Even though it probably won't. I'm just here to correct an error."
"Somebody made a mistake?" Rin asked worriedly.
"Yggdrasil did, but we caught it in time." Nobody but Cassiopée had any idea what Urd meant by Yggdrasil. "Montreal's a bilingual city; you were supposed to get both local languages, not just one. But that's easily enough corrected."
Caster payed close attention to what Urd was about to do, in the hopes that she'd learn something new about divine magic. But her hopes were in vain; Urd reached into a pocket and pulled out a bottle of soap and a stick with a loop on the end, opened the bottle, dipped the loop into the soap, and started blowing bubbles.
The bubbles drifted throughout the bistro. As they touched the foreheads of the displacees, the bubbles burst. Within three minutes, everybody but Urd and Cassiopée had soap on their foreheads.
Urd smiled as she closed the bottle and put it and the stick back in her pocket. "Vous devriez pouvoir comprendre ce que je dis maintenant."
The newcomers from Fuyuki City realized to their surprise that, yes, they could understand her.
"Et maintenant je dois partir," Urd added as she floated back to and through the television set, waving as she left. "Until next time!"
After she was gone and the television started showing the lunchtime news, Caster turned to Cassiopée, an annoyed look on her face. "Just what sort of magic was that?"
"That version of Urd is known as an alchemist, not a spellcaster," she explained, much to Caster's displeasure. "Although she can do both types of magic. If I may suggest, be happy that it worked, not sad that you didn't see how it worked."
As Shirou headed back to the kitchen, Souichirou commented, "I'm surprised that the gods made a mistake."
"I'm not," Rider commented sourly, remembering Athena. "I am surprised that she'd admit to making a mistake, though."
"God does not make mistakes," Rin insisted, with Saber nodding in agreement.
"Ah," Cassiopée replied, "but the megami are not the One God of Adam, Noah, and Abraham, and are thus fallible."
Rin thought for a moment as she ate her lunch. "You putting it that way does clear up that mystery."
"It's a matter of expectations. As Xenophanes said," Souichirou deliberately copied Caster's style, "mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are, and have clothes like theirs, and voice and form. It's comforting to know that, at least in Verðandi and Urðr's case, this is true."
"And the Norns are sisters, are they not?" Archer asked.
"That is what Urðr claimed. Perhaps all of the gods are simply beings like us who have abilities that we do not yet possess."
"You risk hubris there, Kuzuki-sensei," Rider warned her Master's history teacher as Shirou placed bowls in front of both her and Caster.
By the time Shirou brought Kuzuki's, Archer's, and his own lunches out of the kitchen, the others had made good progress in eating their own ramen. Sitting down to start on his own bowl, Shirou asked, "Why did Urd give us fluency in French as well as English?"
Rin replied, "Cassiopée explained that while you were in the kitchen. The short version is that central Montreal, where we live, is fully bilingual in French and English, so we need both languages."
"C'est vrai, mon brave." Cassiopée continued in English, "It isn't unusual to hear a short conversation here where one person speaks French and the other speaks English. I've been told that the displacees in Ottawa only received fluency in English, though, despite Gatineau being directly across the river from that city."
"Ah." The displacees — at least, the Masters — had heard of Ottawa, but Gatineau was new to them.
"You know, this ramen has a bit of a different taste to it," Archer said. "Not a bad taste, just different."
"I couldn't get some of the ingredients that I'm used to using," Shirou replied. "And I thought you Heroic Spirits didn't need to eat."
Archer grinned. "We don't need to if you don't mind us draining mana from our masters, or from random passers-by. This works, too." He pointed at his food when he said that, and Rider quite happily slurped her own noodles in apparent agreement.
Rin looked at Caster. "Since you can stay alive by eating food now, are you still planning on marrying Kuzuki-sensei?"
Caster smiled and laughed, but her smile had an edge to it that Kuzuki wasn't sure he liked. "As Aristotle claimed Heraclitus said, it is harder to fight against pleasure than against anger." She turned to her fiancée. "I'm willing to continue our engagement as long as you keep me happy, Souichirou-san, but if you start taking me for granted, the wedding's off. I got enough of that treatment from Jason to last me two lifetimes, thank you very much."
"I thought that you wanted to free your soul from passions," commented Rider.
Caster laughed at Ridedr's comment. "Well, as Thestorides said, hypocrisy is endemic to human nature."
"Did he?" Souichirou asked, wondering how she knew of Thestorides. "None of his works survived to the modern day."
"That's a pity. Perhaps I should write them down for you."
From the next table over, Cassiopée said, "I'd like to read them. It's too bad that nobody in this reality would believe that they're authentic."
Souichirou chose to remain silent about that comment.
1:37 PM ET
Cassiopée was back at work in her office, but not reading files. Instead, she was discussing with one of her residents what she could do with her life.
"I'm tired of existing for the benefit of men. I want to do something on my own that I can call my own. Back when I was a person, I used to breed horses that were almost as fast as the wind; you could imagine you were flying while riding one of my mares. Now that I'm a Heroic Spirit with a human body, can I do that here?" Rider gestured toward the window behind Cassiopée, not looking at the sheer gauze drape or the wall on the other side of the light well, but instead pointing at the entire city.
Cassiopée shook her head. "No, there's no place anywhere in Montréal to breed horses, at least not where it would be safe for them to live. And they can't keep up with our autos, either."
"Your..." Rider was only puzzled for a brief moment. "Oh, yes, the mechanical conveyances. Being summoned to fight a Grail War did give us some knowledge of the current world. And that makes me wonder whether somebody summoned us to this world, since we were given knowledge of the local languages in the process."
"If you were summoned, it wasn't by me."
Medusa thought for a short moment. "I don't know why, but I trust that you are telling me the truth, Ms. Bright. If I can't raise horses, then I don't care what I do; I just want to be creative."
"Before I married Grahame, I used to live near some pottery studios on rue St. Denis. They're only a half-hour walk from here, or a few minutes away by bus. Would you be interested in working with clay to make things that are useful or decorative?"
"Or both," Rider replied. "Creating art as a result of the soil giving itself to us sounds like it's exactly what I want to do with my life. Would anyone in these studios be willing to accept me as an apprentice in their art?"
"Their style of teaching is less formal than a master-and-apprentice arrangement, but some of them are willing to teach what they know. They're closed tomorrow; we can take a look at their studios on Monday so you can see who you might want to learn from."
"I have that much of a choice in my life, here?" Rider smiled. "I believe I'm going to like it here."
2:16 PM ET
"Now that we can all speak French as well as English, I see no reason not to take that teaching job at Formation Artistique au Cœur de l'Éducation. That means I'll continue to be be your history teacher."
Kuzuki had brought his apartment's kitchen chairs into the living room so that there were enough to go around. Some day soon, after he'd received his first pay, he and Caster would be able to buy more furniture.
"If they offer the job to you," Sakura pointed out.
"My resumé, no, my curriculum vitae is very good. It appears that Vár wrote it for me."
"I hesitate to accept favours from gods," Rin replied. "They have already forbidden fighting the Grail War here. However, it will be comforting to see a familiar face at Fine Arts Core Education, Kuzuki-sensei."
Shirou smiled. "I wonder how long it took then to come up with names that have the same acronym in both languages."
"There are some things you need to know before you enrol at F.A.C.E., though," Kuzuki said. "First, unlike high schools in Japan, most of the schools here do not have a uniform dress code. In fact, F.A.C.E. encourages the students' creativity."
"We don't have to wear uniforms?" Sakura asked, unconsciously smoothing a wrinkle out of her own uniform's skirt.
"That's correct. Mind you, it isn't forbidden, either. Second, this school teaches classes from all twelve years of the mandatory educational curriculum. Since you are transfer students into the high school program, you will stand out."
"I've never attended an escalator school before," Rin commented.
"And transfer students always stand out," added Sakura.
"Third, F.A.C.E. is a performing-arts high school. Do any of you sculpt, paint, sing, dance, or act? Those are the main artistic programs at the school."
"I've never done anything like that at all," Sakura admitted.
"When I go to karaoke with my friends, they sometimes say that I sound like Ueda Kana," Rin said.[5]
"I've played at being a toku character," Shirou said. "But I usually end up playing a villain. Does that count?"[6]
"I don't see why it wouldn't count," Kuzuki replied. "Matou-san, we'll figure out something for you to do. Emiya-san and Tohsaka-san, do either of you feel comfortable making your acting or singing an important part of your studies?"
They thought about their teacher's question for a moment. Finally, Rin said, "If that's what it takes for us to be able to stay in a bilingual school, I'm willing to learn how to sing professionally."
Kuzuki shook his head. "Not professionally. Artistically. Remember that F.A.C.E. focuses on the students' creativity."
"Ah." Rin smiled as she continued. "If it's an expression of one's self, then perhaps I could learn to use music as a way to work magic."
"And I could try acting, if Emiya-san does as well," Sakura added.
"I guess. But wouldn't we be in different grades?"
"Oh. Maybe we could be in a play together anyway."
Before anyone else could object to, or even notice, Sakura's attempt to get closer to Shirou, Kuzuki said, "I believe that's settled, then."
2:53 PM ET
Shirou and Cassoipée were out -- she was showing him where to buy groceries -- so Archer found himself alone in the apartment that he shared with the teenager.
He took the opportunity to do something that, at the time, no other Heroic Spirit in the building knew how to do.
He turned on the apartment's computer and Googled himself.
The first thing that he realized was that the 2016 Internet was faster to respond than the 2006 Internet was.
The second thing he realized was that he got far more results for "Shirou Emiya" than he expected. "What's this 'Fate/stay night' that's mentioned in most of the results?" he muttered. Then he started reading the pages. If anybody happened to be passing by, they'd have heard the strangest comments from Archer. "So, we're characters in an eroge. Better not tell Rin. I guess Shirou's the protagonist, because I'm certainly not getting any." ... "Oh, wonderful; everybody in this world knows who I am." ... "Shit, I don't win in any of the routes?" ... "What, Mordred's a girl, too? Are Gilgamesh and I the only male Heroic Spirits?" ... "Okay, Berserkers and Lancers are males, too." ... "Ew. I'm not an ally of justice or a counter guardian any more, but for Sakura's sake, I'll make an exception. Must remember to help Rider kill Zōken and Shinji when we get home."
There was a knock at his door just after he said the last of those. Turning off the monitor, he got up and opened the door, to see Rider standing there. "May I come in?"
"Sure. You couldn't stay away from me, could you?" he added with a grin.
"Not after what I heard you just say."
One of the perils of putting the computer desk so close to the apartment's front door was that people could hear him when he was using it. "Ah. I'd better be quieter than I was, then. Do you know why I think the world would be better off if Sakura's relatives were dead?"
"I do, but I have to ask you to leave them alive. Despite everything they've done, Sakura still cares for them."
Archer sighed deeply. He decided against mentioning the "Heaven's Feel" route in the game, instead saying, "We can cure Stockholm syndrome nowadays."
"What's Stockholm syndrome?"
3:27 PM ET
Medea and Souichirou were alone in their own apartment. The kitchen chairs were back in the kitchen, and the apartment's residents were using them, sharing a bottle of inexpensive wine that he'd bought at the dépanneur next door. "I've made better wine than this, and I'm no good at making wine," Caster complained.
"We'll know better than to buy it next time. Medea, exactly when did you read the works of Thestorides?"
She tried to dodge his question. "Oh, I don't recall."
"In your previous life, perhaps, before you became a Heroic Spirit?"
"That sounds right."
"When you lived, and died, a half-millennium before Thestorides lived? Assuming there was an actual Thestorides, of course."
"Ah." She tried to laugh it off, but her chuckle sounded forced even to herself. "How upset are you that I name-dropped somebody whose works I've never read?"
"I'm not upset at all," he replied, to her surprise. "You told us a bald-faced lie in order to support your own position, and you did it very well. I've done similar things myself many times before we met. If I wasn't a history teacher, I would never have noticed."
"It doesn't trouble you that you can't trust your betrothed?"
"I can trust you as much as you can trust me."
"Am I a tool for your ambitions, Souichirou Kuzuki?" She looked annoyed.
"As much as I am a tool for yours, Medea of Colchis." He looked untroubled. "I have no intention of throwing you away the way Jason did, though. That man was a fool, to give up your company and your magical power for political gain."
Medea muttered, "Political gain and a pretty face." In a more normal tone of voice, she asked, "Are you going to tell the others?"
Souichirou shook his head. "Why would I? We're to be wed, and that means I'll keep your secrets to the same extent that I expect you to keep mine."
"I'm happy to hear that." She walked over to him, close enough that they could touch. "Tell me, Souichirou, do you love me?"
"I do love you, Medea," he said with a smile. "And do you love me?"
"Yes," she smiled in return.
Each was willing to trust that the other spoke the truth... or, at least, to act like they trusted the other. They both knew that one could never be sure when an admitted liar was lying, and she still had concerns that she couldn't trust her own tastes in men. Then they kissed anyway.
4:30 PM ET
As Cassiopée was winding up the paperwork for the day, her personal phone rang. "'Allo?"
"Hi, Cassie."
"Grahame!" She turned on her phone's camera, making it a video call. "Does this call mean you're coming home for dinner?"
"Got it in one, love."
"And I actually understood that idiom. Urd was here at lunch time to give the residents fluency in French."
"And something rubbed off on you?"
"Perhaps."
"You did make a selfless wish yesterday. Maybe the Norns decided to give you something for yourself as well. Is there anything you want for dinner?"
"I was thinking of trying that pizza place across the road from us."
"Alto, right?" Grahame asked. "I'll order enough pizza for everybody just before I get out of here, and pick it up after I park the car. Is meat lovers good?"
"We should get something vegetarian as well, just in case somebody doesn't eat meat."
"Meat lovers and vegetarian. I knew I married you for your brain, love."
"That isn't what you said during our honeymoon!" Cassiopée said that with a smile.
His smile matched hers. "I married you for that, too. I should be home by six."
"I'll be waiting!"
5:12 PM ET
"Saber, I get the distinct feeling that you don't like me. Or Archer or Rider, either." Caster had cornered her in the residence's bistro.
Saber scowled at Caster. "You should know why I do not associate with you."
"Oh, please don't tell me that you think the consort of a king isn't fit company for you, Your Highness." Sarcasm dripped off the last two words.
Saber looked cross. "The correct form of address is 'My Lord'.[7] And you cannot be as stupid as you just seemed to be."
Caster smiled. "Of course I'm not that stupid. I," she pointed one finger at herself, "just got you," she used the same finger to point at Saber, "to admit to being a member of the ruling class and thus my social peer, after all." Saber was shocked at both that comment and her own lapse of secrecy. "I don't yet know how intelligent Grahame Bright is, but I feel confident matching wits with anyone else in residence here. I suspect that only Cassiopée or Souichirou would give me any challenge."
Saber looked at Caster with lidded eyes. "I give you the same warning that Rider gave your Master: Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."
"Oh, but a haughty spirit is a prerequisite to becoming a king or a queen, isn't it? Certainly Jason acted that way. But he isn't here. You are. Everything's a battle to you, isn't it, Saber? I fight when I need to, not because it's expected of me to fight. And I fight with magic, not with weapons."
"I will be on my guard for both forms of attack, then."
"And that statement tells me that you do not trust what I say. You are right to distrust me, Saber, whatever your real name is. However, we are not fighting a Grail War at the moment. You might be a ruler, but at the moment you are a ruler without a domain or allies. Find yourself an ally or two who isn't your Master here before you're forced to fight alone. And find yourself a hobby before you succumb to what our Masters call karoshi. Relax."
"I do not need your advice, Caster."
"Oh, Saber. Stubborn, stubborn Saber." Caster laughed that ominous chuckle of hers. "You need to get to know us better. As Michael Corleone said, keep your friends close but your enemies closer."
Saber looked puzzled. "I am not familiar with that philosopher."
"I'm not surprised; he's far too new for you to be familiar with him. My fiancé introduced me to his work. And to help keep you close, allow me to introduce myself: in the stories told about me here, my name is Medea."
Saber did not reply... but Caster noticed a quick reaction; Saber had recognized her name, even though she tried to hide it.
After a long moment, Caster scowled at Saber and said, "Fine. Be that way. But do not expect me to come to your rescue at a moment's notice in this world."
6:14 PM ET
"This is an intriguing form of sustenance," Saber said while eating a slice of pizza. "I don't recall having ever seen anything like it. Thank you for bringing it home for us, Grahame."
"It's very much like the 'tables' that Celaeno spoke of in the Aeneid," Souichirou commented, "although these have meat as well as vegetables."
"Meat or vegetables," Rin pointed out.
"True. The name 'pizza' wasn't used until the end of the tenth century, though."
Archer frowned. "And we're getting into a discussion about who invented our dinner. We definitely need to get out of this building and meet other people."
"If you want," Shirou said.
"As Parmenides said, it is indifferent to me where I am to begin, for there shall I return again. Although Parmenides never said when he would return," Caster admitted. "This neighbourhood is as good as any to begin our exploration of the refuge we have found ourselves in, and better than many in that Cassiopée and Grahame can act as our guides."
Rin replied, "And as Thomas Wolfe said, you can't go home again. I would prefer to remain the person that I am instead of being changed by travel."
"You can't stay in your bedroom forever. We have to go to school, at the least," Sakura pointed out... as much as she would prefer that Rin not attend classes with Shirou.
"Perhaps we should begin by exploring the area around our new home," Caster allowed. "More so than a few of us already have," she added, remembering the wine she and her fiancé had drank earlier that day.
"That would be the easiest option," Grahame replied. "And we do need to buy each of you some clothes and housewares."
"And some decent tea, please," Rin replied.
"When do we go?" Sakura asked.
"Tomorrow? I have the day off."
"Well," Cassiopée smiled, "If you're coming along, I can take the girls to some of the better boutiques. Funtom is paying me quite well for my services."
Grahame smiled in return. "You, my dear, are a clotheshorse. And I for one am willing to indulge you in your hobby now that we can afford it."
"I have one problem with this plan," Rin said. "Tomorrow is Sunday."
"The Lord's Day," added Saber.
"Religion is not so respected in Quebec nowadays," Cassiopée said. "M. Kuzuki, are you familiar with the Quiet Revolution?"
"I have heard of it, but I am not familiar with the details," the history teacher admitted.
"I was hoping you would be able to explain it to the others. Suffice it to say that Quebec was a backwater until we broke free of the control of the Church."
Saber wasn't happy to hear that, but she said nothing. Perhaps there was some nuance she was missing, and as a king she'd had her own arguments with the bishops and deacons. Still, even as a guest in this land, it bothered her that the Lord's Day wasn't given due respect.
Cassiopée continued, "However, there are still a large number of churches in Montréal, including a street-front church a block north of here.[8] They celebrate Mass in English at 20 heures... no, I should say 8 P.M. since we're speaking English. You might want to give them a try."
"That would probably be the best option, at least to begin with," Rin replied.
"Then it's decided," Grahame said. "Tomorrow, we build up your wardrobes."
Notes
Continued in Ill-Fated Names, and to be continued in Diary of a Montreal Shopping Trip.
- RK: If you only know of Medea through modern popular culture (and especially if you only know of her through Fate/stay night), set aside an hour and listen to "Worst Marriage Ever: The story of Jason and Medea". You might be surprised by the person described in the myths, and how different she is from the depictions of her in the 20th and 21st centuries.
- RK: Don't blame Grahame for the loot-box microtransaction controversy, though. It wasn't his fault!
- RK: Which, by the laws in effect in Quebec both at the time the story is set and when the story was written, should have been impossible. This will not be the last time that one of the megami works a minor, unobtrusive miracle on behalf of the displacees without being asked. Eventually, the Ultimate Force will notice... but not today.
- BL: Yeah, I hate those Slayers dreams, first Gourry, Lina blows something up, and then it gets those weird reverse-mermaid things with the big fish heads. Wait, what were we talking about again?
- RK: Rin, please stop leaning on the fourth wall.
- RK: Shirou, if you lean on the fourth wall, too, it's going to break...
- RMS: The monarchs of England didn't start using "Highness" as a title until Richard II in the 14th Century, about a millennium after Artoria's time.
- RK: Well, there was in 2016. It closed at some time between 2018 and 2024.
--
Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
Rob Kelk
Sticks and stones can break your bones,
But words can break your heart.
- unknown
