Day One - Compass Rose

[Bozwevial]

Will you be the one to drink?

You, who would see your wish realized,

An impossibility of the world,

Found in the hands of one lost twice,

Grasp what you can,

But remember gold is fleeting.

So, child,

Shoulder what you can carry alone.

Music: On the Shore

This is a story from ten years ago.

...No, that's not right. This is a story from yesterday.
But it feels much older than that.
I guess that's the way of tragedy.

A young man is lying on the floor.
Or, to be precise, a body is lying on the floor.
Can you really call something 'a man' if it isn't alive?
What's left isn't anything.
Put simply, it's just meat.

But,
to the girl kneeling nearby, this body is her brother.
He is also a magus.

The Holy Grail war has started, and her brother is the first casualty.
The Grail could be said to have taken him.
Without a Master,
there isn't a chance at winning the war.
But the girl doesn't care about that so much any more.
Well, she does want the Grail.
But what she wants isn't a wish of her own.
She wants what the Grail stole.
...So, she takes the only thing her brother has left.
The Servant who couldn't save him helps.

A Master isn't a Master without the Command Spell.
For the girl to command a Servant, she needs to take her brother's.
The young boy carefully traces out the spell's new home.
...It hurts.
Having a star forced into your body would be a good comparison.
And, just like having something foreign put into you,
her Magic Circuits want to reject the outsider.
But this Command Spell is her brother's.
...So, she forces it to stay.

...It's morning again.
The sun is barely up.
Only a little light comes through the window.
Laoise's alarm hasn't gone off, either.
She must have been sleeping ever since the surgery.
Although there are as many people here as there usually are,
the Hannagáin house still feels empty.
I guess that's the way of tragedy.

[veekie]

*Poke*
A light jab to the sleeping Master's side, relentless in it's dedication to disturbing her rest. The prodding stops, and the room fills with the morning light.
Then...
*JAB*
"Oi! Rise and shine, missy."

[Agita]

Normally, the alarm is only a precaution. It rings when there's only just enough time to get dressed and leave the house. In reality, she wakes up by herself well before that. But after yesterday, she wants to just ignore everything and sleep until she no longer feels like it.

The cocoon of blankets splits slightly to release a single arm that pats the bed as if searching for something. As soon as she's found the Servant, Laoise reacts faster than one might expect and smacks him on the head.
She doesn't expect Lancer to just shut up with that, though. Resigning herself to the fact that she's not going to sleep any more, the Master slips out of her bed on the opposite side.

[veekie]

"Ow. Lazy AND violent. You'd do well with some people I knew."

[Agita]

Lancer is summarily ignored as his Master sifts through the closet. She first tosses a uniform to the floor, then a bundle of cloth at Lancer's face. "...Change into that. Then into your spirit form." She scoops up the clothes ont he floor and heads out towards the bathroom, while the material in the Servant's face turns out to be a pink blouse, a knee-long skirt, and a jacket. They are clothes that shrunk while washing them recently. Laoise isn't sure why she didn't get around to throwing them away, but now they should come in handy.

[veekie]

"Hey!These are girl clothes! Why would I want to put them on?" Lancer sorts out the items, grumbling and clearly not intending to use any of them, "Nobody'd see me in spirit form, anyway"

[Agita]

"So you'll blend in if I need you material. Not like it's very different from what you're wearing now." Laoise turns around to stare at caster stone-faced. "And as punishment."

[veekie]

"I hear and obey." Lancer's lips twitch in a mixture of a grimace and smirk, having evidently gotten to her successfully. He starts stripping down right there to change on the spot, ignoring any protests, before winding up a prettier girl than Laoise manages to be in the STILL oversized clothing, though he makes a great show of having to adjust the skirt for a smaller waist before fading into sparkles.

[Agita]

Lancer's indecency is answered only by the slam of the bathroom door. Not that much later, Laoise emerges fully clothed in her school uniform and sets about preparing breakfast.
For herself, of course.

Cremini mushrooms and goat cheese with chives in a wrap makes up Laoise's meal. As preparation for lunch, she prepares one sandwich with apricots and chopped almonds between slices of toasted bread and one with avocado and peanuts. She doesn't have the mood or appetite to prepare anything hot, so she goes with what she had already prepared before.

Loise eats the wrap in silence while staring at the sole phone in the house. She hasn't called home yet. What would she even say? The common sense she suppressed yesterday creeps into her thoughts again: That a dead person's soul is gone, and resurrection is impossible. "The Holy Grail can bring him back. Right?" If the Holy Grail really is a wish-granting device on par with true magic...

[veekie]

Lancer seems to take much enjoyment out of her reactions, then Laoise feels an immaterial but intense attention being paid to her meal. "That sure looks good."

He sobers up on the subject of his former master, his dematerialized voice cool in her mind,"With as much prana as was promised, you could do nearly anything with enough skill. And I do have said skill. After all, have I not personal experience with the power of returning from death?"

[Agita]

"..." The girl answers with silence. Just like the last four times she asked.

Last night, under Lancer's instructions and with his help, she preserved the corpse. It shouldn't decay until the War ends. The shrine they built in a hurry is supposed to prevent his soul from returning to the Root for the time being.
...She has no idea if it worked. But there's nothing for it but to hope now.

Laoise finishes most of her wrap quickly, leaving two bites unattended on the plate without bothering to clean it up.
She wraps her left hand with a bandage to conceal the command spell. It still hurts, so it shouldn't be hard to fake a wound. It's not so much that she wants to hide her status as a Master. More than that, she just doesn't want to explain the three curved lines meeting one another at the midpoint to other people.

With preparations complete, Laoise packs her sandwiches and heads out, leaving Lancer to follow by himself.

[Bozwevial]

Even with her preparations, Laoise is still quite early. Fuyuki is quiet, and only a few other early risers are out on the streets heading to work or school. Her breath hangs cloudy in the air as she makes her way across the city, passing from the more familiar Western-style neighborhood to the distinctly Japanese neighborhood near her school.

Drawing nearer to the school gates, Laoise and Lancer can see some of the sports clubs practicing already. The football club in particular seems to be out in full force, two makeshift teams shouting and racing around the chilly playing field after the ball while the younger students jog laps. Perhaps they've got a match soon?

One such club member is sitting on the curb near the school gates, scowling through a layer of mud and grime all over his uniform and sporting a very noticeable swollen lip. When he catches sight of Laoise, he pales and jumps to his feet, sending the ball he was holding flying. “S-senpai! Good morning!”

(click to show/hide)

His name is Yamato Murakami. He's a first-year student at Laoise's school who's constantly getting into trouble with the upperclassmen.

[Agita]

Laoise watches the ball bounce in her general direction answers the greeting with a sound of vague acknowledgement. Checking for cars and the like, she bends over to carefully pick the ball up and bounces it back to the boy. "Got in a fight again." It's technically worded like a question, but it's actually a statement of fact.

[Bozwevial]

Yamato's scowl deepens. "They told me I had to run an extra ten laps because my hair looks like a girl's hair, so I fought 'em." He catches the ball, bouncing it on his knee a few times. "But Daisuke-senpai told me to wait out here until the end of practice. He's probably right. I guess if I keep beating them up, I'm not setting a very good example." A grin breaks through the mud. "But I saw him smiling when I tackled those jerks."

The football migrates to his ankle, balanced precariously on an outstretched leg for a few moments before he lets out a shocked noise. "Senpai, your hand's all cut up!" Yamato stares at the bandage covering Laoise's left hand...and true enough, there does seem to be blood soaking through the gauze, a rough approximation of the curved lines on her skin. She doesn't remember the pain getting any worse, though...

[Agita]

"...?" Laoise frowns down at the bandage, probably the most distinctive expression she's made today.
...This shouldn't be. She feels a pang in her gut. A properly done spiritual surgery shouldn't have this kind of complication.
"Must've opened again." She can't show any of that, though. She pulls her sleeve over the gauze and looks away. "I'm fine."

[Bozwevial]

"Look at all that blood! You can't be fine--I know! We've got some medical stuff in the locker rooms! Wait right here, senpai!" Before he's even finished talking, Yamato dashes off back toward the playing field, not stopping to go around the scrimmage in progress. Angry yells drift back toward the school gates.

[veekie]

That probably isn't helping.
Lancer's voice fills her mind.
This shouldn't be happening, unless some other power is interfering.

[Bozwevial]

As Laoise and Lancer mull over the bleeding Command Spell, they can see Yamato engaged in a shouting match on the field, with what looks like the entire club's medical supplies under his arm. Daisuke seems to be mediating between the overeager first-year and several of the practicing upperclassmen.

[Agita]

"That's right... Even if you're not Caster, a surgery done by a Servant shouldn't go wrong like this." The culprit would have to be the same who poisoned her brother. But why this way? Yesterday, she thought she might have been missed because Aengus was the one with the command spells. But for someone to sabotage the surgery, they would have to have been aware of it.

Seeing the commotion on the football field, Laoise quickly moves to lean on one of the pillars next to the school gate, out of sight from the field. She covers her face with her hands and sighs. Briefly, she considers just running away - either to class or back home. Instead, she unwraps the bandage to check on the command spell discreetly.

[Bozwevial]

The last layer of bloody gauze lifts to reveal the red marks of the command spell, scarlet against Laoise's unbroken skin. There aren't any cuts on the marks, or indeed anywhere else on her hand that could have been bleeding. Even the edges of the command spell, which were swollen and painful this morning, are almost back to normal. Outwardly, nothing appears to be wrong. Lancer's surgery seems to have gone as well as could be expected...apart from the red stains on the bandage that seemingly came from nowhere.