Pine Garden

[SINIB]

Tsumiko

"Mmm..." Tsumiko had unconciously placed her hands on Archer's arm, leaning in closer. "Interesting."

[Elf]

Emiya

Emiya blinked as Tsumiko placed a hand on his arm and leaned in closer.  He didn't jolt or jump and he didn't shy away from her touch either.  Yet, it just feels weird, he thought.

Not that his new cooking companion was touching him, but that someone was touching him all together without trying to kill him.

"It also helps make the batter lighter.  With cake batter, it should be runny so the cake bakes nice and fluffy," he said.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

He seemed unburdened by the question, and he answered it without even having to think about it. Why, wasn't it obvious in the first place?

"Because weakness is unsightly."

That was it. She was as free to go as she was free to come in the first place. "Why do you seek strength then? Is battle what brings you pleasure?" Despite her hostility, he sounded genuinely curious by what she had to say.

[Aiden]

Vega

He seemed unburdened by the question, and he answered it without even having to think about it. Why, wasn't it obvious in the first place?

"Because weakness is unsightly."

That was it. She was as free to go as she was free to come in the first place. "Why do you seek strength then? Is battle what brings you pleasure?" Despite her hostility, he sounded genuinely curious by what she had to say.

Mira

Weakness...

That seemed to bring Mira to a halt, the wind coming out of her sails. At first she didn't turn to look at Vega. After a moment she asked, "What is weakness, then?"

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

"Now, I'm no philosopher... And you just answered a question with a question."

He clicked his tongue and smiled, winking at her with confidence. Faith, in his own self, his own abilities, and his own conviction. His footsteps echoed, and he turned away from her in turn. He was standing over the table of the counter, and took a crystal cup that he filled with a strong crimson liquid.  He brought the cup to his lips, swirled it, and narrowed his eyes.

"Impotence. To surpass your old self, to reach your future glory. The impotence to realize your truest potential, and dying without being able to scream at the world that you are more than they think you're worth, and laugh at the hand that fate plays you. To live an ugly, miserable life unable to protect the ones you love, having to sleep amongst the rats and the scum and the filth of this world while those you scorn prosper. Alone, and forgotten forevermore. Forevermore..."

He brought the cup to his lips and drank. It had been his fifth in a day, and its taste was one he always remembered to bring him joy. And yet, he couldn't stop frowning. A swirling rage was burrowing from his very soul.

"That is weakness."

[SINIB]

Emiya

Emiya blinked as Tsumiko placed a hand on his arm and leaned in closer.  He didn't jolt or jump and he didn't shy away from her touch either.  Yet, it just feels weird, he thought.

Not that his new cooking companion was touching him, but that someone was touching him all together without trying to kill him.

"It also helps make the batter lighter.  With cake batter, it should be runny so the cake bakes nice and fluffy," he said.

Tsumiko

Tsumiko nodded, staring at everything he did with rapt eyes. "Mhm, mhm!"

[Elf]

Emiya

"Here, get some parchment and put it in the cake pans.  It'll make removing the cake easier," Archer said as he pointed to said parchment.  She was moving closer to him, so he crossed over to the refrigerator, not quite sure what the "respectable distance" for him to be with this girl was. 

He opened up the refrigerator and pulled out butter.  "For this, we'll use unsalted butter."

[Aiden]

Vega

"Now, I'm no philosopher... And you just answered a question with a question."

He clicked his tongue and smiled, winking at her with confidence. Faith, in his own self, his own abilities, and his own conviction. His footsteps echoed, and he turned away from her in turn. He was standing over the table of the counter, and took a crystal cup that he filled with a strong crimson liquid.  He brought the cup to his lips, swirled it, and narrowed his eyes.

"Impotence. To surpass your old self, to reach your future glory. The impotence to realize your truest potential, and dying without being able to scream at the world that you are more than they think you're worth, and laugh at the hand that fate plays you. To live an ugly, miserable life unable to protect the ones you love, having to sleep amongst the rats and the scum and the filth of this world while those you scorn prosper. Alone, and forgotten forevermore. Forevermore..."

He brought the cup to his lips and drank. It had been his fifth in a day, and its taste was one he always remembered to bring him joy. And yet, he couldn't stop frowning. A swirling rage was burrowing from his very soul.

"That is weakness."

Mira

Mira seemed to consider his point, perhaps. She did not turn back to him as her hands balled up into fists. From the uneasiness of her breathing his words appeared to do strike some kind of cord in the purple-haired fighter. And then after several seconds the air in the room began to feel heavier. A weight pressed down on Vega's shoulders.

"How strange." Her voice was almost a whisper. "For someone like to you, someone who says those things, to be content with where he is now? You must be very confident in your current strength."

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

The young man smirked with bitter contempt. "Content? Didn't I say it already? It is quite rude to project feelings onto me. We've barely just met." How detestable, his cup was empty already. He refilled it and sipped onto the crystal glass once more. The wine gave his lips an even redder complexion, much like lipstick. Only when he licked them, did he close his eyes and think. And after that, his features grew gentler.

But the air around him was icy.

"Although, if I were to battle, I wouldn't lose to anyone."

[Aiden]

Vega

The young man smirked with bitter contempt. "Content? Didn't I say it already? It is quite rude to project feelings onto me. We've barely just met." How detestable, his cup was empty already. He refilled it and sipped onto the crystal glass once more. The wine gave his lips an even redder complexion, much like lipstick. Only when he licked them, did he close his eyes and think. And after that, his features grew gentler.

But the air around him was icy.

"Although, if I were to battle, I wouldn't lose to anyone."

Mira

Her knuckles cracked like a skull with a hammer taken to it. Her voice, a rough edge cutting through Vega's ears, responded. "I don't believe you."

She turned around, and sharp blue eyes shot him right in that pretty face of his.

"Prove it."

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

For a moment, his eyes widened. He looked incredulous, so much that he turned back to look at her with that wide-eyed expression. He said no time and time again, and yet she was still this stubborn? It was almost beautiful.

"You're quite the pushy woman you know that..." He shook his head and smiled. So be it then, he might as well honour a woman who had no future.

"Fine. I suppose you came all this way. This one time, I will humour you." He blew her a kiss with a candid smile. The gliter in his eyes was as glorious as it was charming, but there was something more to it. Something different. "Consider this a gift."

He turned around, and took the first few steps to his chambers. Suddenly, for a moment, he stopped. And his tone seemed different as well.

"Wait for me outside, by the forest. I won't be long."

[SINIB]

Tsumiko

The young girl followed behind him like a puppy. She followed every instruction that he gave her to a T, exactly as he wanted her to do it.

After a bit, Tsumiko brushed up against him. "Archer, what happened, in that grail war you talked about?"

[Elf]

Archer

She's a good sous chef, almost as good as Tamaneo Cat, Emiya thought as Tsumiko followed his instructions to the letter.

Until she leaned against him.  His body froze and his heart picked up.  It wasn't attraction persay, but it had been a long time since a woman - No, a girl, he reminded himself, a broken girl who needs help, - had leaned against him like this.  She was warm and soft in all the places a girl should be soft.

He looked away and asked, "Which one?  When I was a master or all the times I was a Servant?"

[SINIB]

Tsumiko

Tsumiko seemed unaware of the discomfort she was causing him, still pressed up against him. She nodded. "Well, yes. Anything you can tell me. I want to know what happened before me. Who created me, and you're the only lead I've got."

Her big purple eyes bored into him. Tears began to well up in her eyes. "Please."

[Elf]

Emiya

Damn it, the former Servant thought as she looked up at him with those teary, mismatched eyes.

His broad shoulders slumped as he sighed and shook his head.  "Yare yare, making a man bringing up some of his biggest mistakes," he said with a half-smile to take the edge off of his sardonic words.

"So, there was this idiot named Emiya Shirou, and he had the brilliant idea that he wanted to be a Hero of Justice . . ." he began as he told her all he remembered when he had been that teenage boy all of those years ago. 

He told her about Saber and the complicated feelings there, about how he failed her and how the vision of her was forever burned into his mind, even after he'd seen the depths of his own Special Hell.  About, "That asshole Lancer who stabbed me in the heart because he's a drunken, Irish asshole," Gilgamesh, Tohsaka Rin and more complicated feelings, the Tragedy of Ilya and how her death haunted him to even this day, and to Sakura, the girl who had been his dearest friend in the end, and how he failed even her.

Then he told her what happened after the War, his Faustian pact with Humanity to be it's literal bitch, and iterations of him being summoned to different places, and how, until Chaldea, Tohsaka Rin was the only person who gave him any respite from being a Counter Guardian.

His tone and description when he was telling her as his tenure as a Servant was different than him telling her about being a master.  It felt more academic as he was going from records he had access too and lacked emotion at points, as if he was an outsider reading someone's detailed diary.

He told her about all of his retroactive suicide plans.  How he had succeeded.  How most of the time he ended up dying to save Rin.  He even told her how he stood there like a goddamn potato every time he saw Saber for the "first" time again.