The sound of footsteps broke me out of my musings. I gazed at a door nearby just as it clicked open.
Artoria emerged, steps light and eyes vigilant as they swept her surroundings. She held a slice of honeyed cake, clutching it like something precious.
She looked left, then right. Her gaze finally landed on me. Her body went still. She opened her mouth, then closed it.
An awkward silence fell.
"...You're awake, Master." Artoria spoke after a moment, attempting casualness, though her eyes betrayed her as they followed my gaze down to the honey cake in her grip.
"This slice of honey cake was left over, and as a responsible knight, I couldn't bear to let food go to waste... so I decided to consume it myself." Her voice grew lower with each word, dwindling to a whisper by the end.
"It's fine. However, you should know that honey cake is Medea's preferred dessert. She had set that slice aside for herself." I returned my gaze to the sky.
Artoria did not reply. She settled onto the grass beside me with impeccable grace.
"Master."
A slight rustle from my side.
She shuffled closer.
"You won't tell that wi—cough—that is to say, Medea... about this, will you?"
I gave her a glance.
"Even if I said nothing, she would know it was you. You possess the largest appetite among all of us."
Artoria's fingers paused mid-unwrapping. Then they resumed with even more determination.
"And if she does? I performed a service by preventing her favored cake from being discarded." She took a bite, as if to punctuate her point.
We stayed like that for some time.
I continued watching the sky. She kept glancing between her cake, me, and the sky above—as though trying to decipher what was going through my mind.
Soon, she finished and wiped her hands clean with a handkerchief, tucking it away.
She was closer now.
"Master... I have never asked before, but why did you enter the Holy Grail War?" Artoria fixed her emerald eyes on me.
I let her question linger.
"...To encounter something unknown. I possess talents such as [Ultimate Analyst] and [Ultimate Detective]. They render everything predictable. Boring." My voice remained flat.
"At a glance, I know more about a person than they know of themselves. How they will live. Which choices they will make. How they will die."
Artoria fell silent. Her eyes narrowed with gravity.
"Would knowing everything not be as much a curse as it is a blessing, Master?" Her brows furrowed.
"It does not matter. Blessing or curse—categorizing my talents under such concepts changes nothing about what they are."
Her brows furrowed deeper.
"So... you don't have a wish for the Grail, Master?" she asked.
"Anything the Grail can grant, I can obtain with my own two hands. To depend on a third-party artifact would be an admission that something exists which is impossible even for me—no different from those talentless people who consider anything remotely difficult to be an impossibility."
A pause.
"And I will never become like them. If there is no path, then I will cleave one. If something is impossible, then I will keep trying until it becomes possible. If the inevitable stands before me, then I will stand against it."
Artoria's expression shifted. Her eyes settled on my blank face. I registered respect, a flicker of camaraderie, and an emotion she herself seemed unaware of.
I took in her reaction.
"What about you? What is it you wish for, should you obtain the Grail?" I asked, though I had already deduced her answer.
She faltered and took a deep breath to compose herself.
"Master..."
Her fingers curled into a fist.
"I want to change my past."
My face turned to her, devoid of judgment.
"I want to make it so that someone else—someone more worthy, someone who can lead Britain to a brighter future—pulls Caliburn from the stone instead of me." Struggle was plain in her eyes as she looked at the grass below.
"I could not protect the country I swore to protect. My Knights of the Round Table left me, one by one..." Her breathing began to slip from its composed rhythm.
"Sir Tristan said, 'The King does not understand how others feel.'
Sir Lancelot eloped with Guinevere, even when I did not blame them.
Sir Agravain acted against—or without—my direct knowledge to manage the kingdom."
She looked back up into my eyes, searching, seeking, as if they held the answers to every doubt she carried.
"Merlin said that only I could save Britain from destruction. Yet I failed him. Failed my knights. Failed my country." Her knuckles were white.
"So I want to change the past. I want someone more suited to take the throne of Britain in my place." She held my gaze. "Tell me, Master... Am I wrong for wanting it?"
This was the second time I saw something fragile beneath Artoria's composed exterior.
I broke my silence as she kept her eyes locked on mine.
"You are a... fool."
Artoria blinked, taken aback. Her ears twitched, as if to confirm she had heard correctly.
"This world is not static. Those who win today will lose tomorrow; those who lose tomorrow may have won yesterday. Even if you—or someone else—had protected Britain from destruction during their reign, what of after that?"
She tilted her head.
"What about a thousand years after your reign? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? Would Britain even exist?"
Artoria opened her mouth to retort—then froze. She had nothing.
"Sir Tristan said, 'The King does not understand how others feel.' Good. Those with talent have no need to understand talentless monkeys."
Artoria's breath caught.
"Sir Lancelot eloped with Guinevere. Tell me—what is a knight? Someone who follows a code of honor and chivalry. So is it chivalry to have an affair with the queen of the very king you serve?"
She shook her head unconsciously.
"Sir Agravain acted within your kingdom without your knowledge. What is the difference between that and treason?"
She nodded. Slightly.
"Merlin said that only you could save Britain from destruction. Then where was he when your Round Table was falling apart? Did he try to help? Did he try to warn you?"
Once again, she shook her head.
"You say you failed your knights and Merlin. Yet from my perspective, it is the other way around."
Artoria hadn't realized she'd been leaning forward until her knees brushed mine. Her eyes were wide, wet at the edges, searching my face as though I held a verdict she both craved and dreaded.
"You did not fail them. They failed you."
A shiver ran down her spine.
She wanted to deny my accusations. To offer different reasons. To defend her knights and Merlin.
But what terrified her was...
A small part of her did not consider me wrong.
Her face was close now. Close enough that I could see the slight tremor in her lower lip.
"They considered you perfect."
A pause.
"They were wrong."
Her cheeks were red.
"No one is perfect."
Our shadows intersected.
"Perfection is a lie."
...
..
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***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[5 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Have a wonderful day everyone and take care of yourselves.