crowspace | call me out v. 15.0

Yes, please! [Well, she's up front about her intentions, at least.] If you're okay with that, anyway- you don't have to stay if you don't want to.

[It doesn't seem to occur to her that the easiest way for him to leave would be for her to die. She's not really someone who worries about her own safety very often.]

[You don't have to, much, when nothing can hurt you that you don't allow.]

Oh, but it wouldn't just be about what I want, of course- I'll do my best to help get your wish, too! It's important to adequately compensate anyone who participates in an experiment, after all.

What do you want from the Grail, da-ge? [A dangerous question, asked in complete innocence. There's probably something symbolic in that.]

Hmm, good question...

[What does he want more than anything else? To have his precious people with him always, untouched by death or war. He just has to find the right way of wording that so the Grail gives him exactly what he intends.]

I'm still thinking it over, but I'd like a good story along the way~

[It's honestly a pretty fair and reasonable wish. It's unfortunate that he's just so... himself, about it.]

[Mercy, at least, accepts this without concern about any ulterior motives.]

That seems fair! Whatever else happens, Grail Wars seem like they turn out to be pretty interesting.

[If your definition of "interesting" includes "terrifying and lethal".]

I don't know what kind of story we'd be, but I hope it has a happy ending- [She breaks off midsentence, as. Uh.]

[Okay, so remember how there was a headless cat somewhere in that mess of a lab? Yeah, apparently that is. Not a piece of taxidermy. Because it's hopped onto the counter next to Merlin and is trying to affectionately shoulder-check Mercy in the face.]

Aww, Pathos- dinner time for you too, huh? [This is apparently normal, because she just starts patting it fondly and looking around for a can opener.] Where's Logos? You can't have both bowls to yourself, if I'm feeding you then I'm feeding both of you.

[There's a mlrrp noise from somewhere under the table. A moment later, three fuzzy little heads poke out.]

[All three of them are attached to the same cat.] Oh, there you are!

[Logos meows in chorus with itself as Mercy busies herself filling the cat bowls with kibble.]

[What cute cats, thought apparently someone besides Mercy. At least two people in the world. Merlin reaches over and gives Pathos a scritch.]

It certainly hasn't been boring so far.

[Pathos makes a low, happy rumbling sound. Apparently purring sounds kind of bass-boosted when it's all in the chest.]

[Two of Logos' heads busy themselves with wolfing down the kibble, while the remaining one looks curiously at Merlin. What are you, sir? You are large, and smell confusing.]

[Mercy smiles and gives it some reassuring ear scritches.]

It's okay, he's a friend! [Logos seems dubious about this, but will allow it. For now.]

I guess we should probably try to figure out strategies, right? Tomorrow's the weekend, so we have all day to look around the city if you want.

[Because of course she wouldn't summon an ancient and powerful spirit on a school night. That would be irresponsible.]

[Education is important, says world's most irresponsible teacher.]

I'd love the tour. Where is the War going on this time around?

We're in Verdette City! [Mercy helpfully brings up a map on her old, battered tablet to show him. Are those scorch marks on the casing? ...Whatever, it's probably fine.] I've lived here my whole life, it's pretty nice.

[According to the map, Verdette appears to be a moderately large and reasonably prosperous city located in scenic western-Europe-somewhere-don't-worry-about-it. Decent leylines and, according to Mercy, a reasonable local mage population for its size... but nothing to really indicate why a Grail War might have shifted here in particular.]

[Still, Mercy helpfully answers any questions he might have to the best of her ability, apparently just as happy about sharing knowledge as she is about accumulating it. The strategy session continues late into the evening, until even Mercy's boundless energy begins to flag a little, and she reluctantly admits that it's time for bed.]

[Of course, depending on what comes through their connection in the course of their dreams, it might not be entirely restful...]

Edited 2022-01-08 16:45 (UTC)

[It is a difficult thing to communicate to someone who doesn't have Clairvoyance what knowing the future is like, even in the comparatively free world of dreams. But perhaps it would be something like:

You look at your king, smile and say, "Good morning." She nods at you. Overlapping her you see the silhouette of a bloody hill of corpses, of her crying out in anguish.

Everyone you run into, it seems, has a bloody fate in store for them. You pass Gareth and Lancelot chatting amicably and see him running her through with no resistance. You see Mordred falling to his father's own hand at the same moment that you spot him practicing his sword drills.

You cannot even look at the humans you care about without the reminder that they will die, and painfully.

Your hands itch.

Merlin wakes with a rotten feeling in the pit of his stomach. He puts on a smile, just the same as yesterday, the same as tomorrow, and waits for his Master to awaken.]

[Mercy has always seen the world as beautiful. How can it not be, when everything is so rich and vivid? From bud to bloom, roses to rot, she loves it all- glorious and ugly as it is, it is lovely to her, simply because it lived or is living. She hurts for the world that cannot see itself as she sees it, inherently worthy of love.]

[When she sees Merlin in the morning, she remembers that feeling of pain and horror at the sight of a problem that simply couldn't be fixed. Not something that they wouldn't let you fix, or you weren't sure how to fix, but that the universe simply would not accept it being anything other than broken. Quietly, something in her doctor's soul rebels.]

[After a second's thought, she hugs him, quickly and casually as though this is a totally normal way to react to seeing your new immortal friend's horrifying death visions.]

[She smiles and says:] Good morning! Do you like breakfast bars? I have twelve boxes of them, they're mostly granola.

Edited 2022-01-08 17:23 (UTC)

[Merlin is prepared to wish Mercy a good morning when she hugs him, and he falls short, blinking a few times before settling on patting her on the head.

He doesn't know what vision of his she saw, but if it's anything like what he saw of hers... He can imagine it wasn't a very good one, at least to an outside eye.]

I can safely say I've never had one.

[The funny(?) thing is that if he'd asked Mercy, she'd consider it a treasured childhood memory. She got to spend the whole day with both of her amazing older sisters- why wouldn't she be happy about that?]

[Sure it's a shame that da-jie and er-jie had that argument... but it's normal for siblings to fight, isn't it? Everybody says so.]

[That's just what sisters do.]

You should try all the different flavors then! [She opens the cabinet with a brisk nod, revealing her frankly excessive stockpile of portable breakfast snack foods.] That way you can see what you like best. Experimentation is the key to discovery!

[There's all the typical flavors- raspberry, chocolate, apple cinnamon- but also several boxes that suggest Mercy's scientific curiosity has led her to buy various obscure seasonal varieties or one-off promotional gimmick flavors more than once.]

[No one knows who thought it was acceptable to produce Cool Ranch flavored granola, but hopefully they have since been found and stopped.]

[That's probably the reason he won't ask Mercy. Other than 'talking about serious topics sucks'.

Inadvisably, Merlin does try all of the different kinds, even the Cool Ranch (though he makes a face at that one). Her enthusiasm is infectious.]

As I thought, there's really no dethroning chocolate as the best.

[Mercy nods in solemn agreement, despite having mostly taken raspberry-flavored ones as a token attempt to pretend she's eating healthy. They've got fruit in it, fruit is good for you.]

[Pathos is being held firmly in her lap in an attempt to keep him from trying to eat the Cool Ranch granola. It's bad enough for people, it can't possibly be good for cats.]

Um, da-ge... There's something I want to ask, but I'm worried it's rude. [Mercy suddenly seems uncharacteristically shy, looking down at Pathos instead of meeting Merlin's eyes as she talks to him.] It's about what I saw last night...

One of my memories. [He'll acknowledge it out loud, at least.] I'm very hard to offend, so don't worry about that.

[The worst he'll do is refuse to answer.]

Okay. I mean, I completely understand if it's not my business, or if there was different social context back then, but- [She makes awkward motions with her hands as she talks, as though trying to catch her flustered thoughts.]

Was King Arthur trans?

[...No, she's serious. That is genuinely her question.]

[Her anatomist's eye combined with Merlin's clear perspective means that she's pretty sure that the person he was looking at when he spoke to the king was a teenage girl, but she's well aware that sex and gender aren't the same thing.]

[The understanding that it's rude to pry into someone's personal business has been warring furiously with her historical curiosity all morning.]

[...oh, honey.]

She did have some complicated feelings about it, but I wouldn't call her that. At the time women couldn't be rulers, so she hid her gender in order to take the throne. In a different place she might have lived openly as a woman.

Edited 2022-01-08 18:51 (UTC)

Ohhhhh. [Mercy nods, instantly accepting this answer.] Okay, that's fine too!

[Look, she just didn't want to misgender King Arthur, okay. Doesn't matter how long someone's been dead for, that's just not cool.]

[With a slight blush:] She was really pretty...

[Great, she's not even in this War and someone still manages to get a crush on Artoria.]

[...At least, hopefully she's not. Because there's a very awkward reunion coming up, if she is.]

[Mercy is valid. Or at least valid in this area.]

She was, she was. it's a shame she never would have thought of herself that way.

[Local Teen Too Gay To Be Constrained By Laws Of Space-Time Or Common Sense.]

I guess that's the sort of thing that's hard to see about yourself, objectively...

[Snapping out of her reverie, she perks up again.] Speaking of seeing things, I promised to show you around the city, right?

[Gently depositing Pathos onto the floor, she stands up and begins rummaging through a nearby drawer.] If I wear this, then even if you're in spirit form we should still be able to talk without problems!

[Some Masters maintain secrecy through sticking purely to telepathy, or through an elaborate magical illusion. Others, apparently, use a $20 set of cat-ear headphones with a bluetooth attachment.]

[Modern technology is so convenient.]

Stylish and practical. I approve.

[The cat ears are an especially nice touch. Everything is cuter with cat ears.]

[Mercy would certainly agree. Just look at Logos- he has three whole sets of cat ears and he's adorable.]

[Since she doesn't have any modern clothes that would fit an adult man, Merlin is probably going to have to either stay in spirit form or risk being mistaken for a hardcore cosplayer, but true to her word she does keep up a cheerful stream of commentary into the headset, looking like any other chatty teen rambling on the phone in public.]

[From the outside, Mercy's apartment is in an unremarkable run-down building in a less well-off part of town- small and not much in the way of easily available resources, but on the other hand it's probably likely to get overlooked at first glance by anyone seeking out the great and powerful. So it's got that going for it.]

[Her tour is equal parts "potential strategic advantage" and "showing him nice scenery or particularly interesting landmarks". He is a visitor, after all. It's only fair to let him have some of the tourist experience.]

[If he's keeping a close eye on his surroundings, magically-speaking, he might distantly be able to sense three potential Masters at various points throughout the city, although none of them ever get particularly close.]

[One is impossible to determine the source of- the feeling slips by in passing while they're out on the street, there and gone again in a moment, presumably the result of a fellow Master also out and about, on their way to some other destination.]

[One, oddly enough, seems to be located in a building Mercy identifies as the local police station.]

[And one is right in the middle of Estrella Academy, the school she attends.]

[The tour is much appreciated, especially its digressions from the strategic. He's here to have a good time, he might as well enjoy the scenery.

Merlin makes a mental note of the sources of the magical signatures he feels. The one at school is particularly concerning, because...]

I assume you still want to attend class while the war is on?

Yep! [This is, after all, a girl who loves learning and knowledge to a frankly alarming degree. The only acceptable reason to miss class, for her, is if you found something really scientifically fascinating that just couldn't wait.]

[Or being dead, she guesses.]

From what I heard, it's traditionally conducted at night away from witnesses, right? Since school only happens in the middle of the day, I figured it'd leave me with plenty of time for other stuff!

[The idea that going to school all day and then having magical life or death combat late into the night might be a little tiring doesn't appear to occur to her because she has vast reserves of energy and, more importantly, is a teenager. At sixteen, the idea that she wouldn't immediately bounce back from being out all night is still a foreign glimmer on a distant horizon.]

Hard to argue with that logic. But I think I'd better come with you to class just to be on the safe side.

[Technically, nobody should try an attack at school. All magecraft should be kept secret and draw no attention to itself.

Technically, a lot of people break that rule when they think it's to their advantage.]

Okay! [No objection from her, at least. Why not bring the disembodied spirit of King Arthur's infamous court mage with you to math class? Seems legit.]

We might have needed to bring you there at least once anyway- the Second Owner of Verdette City is the principal here. She's... [Mercy pauses, politeness visibly struggling against honesty to come up with something to say that isn't "kind of scary sometimes".] Very serious about her work!

[There, that's respectable. She does respect her, at least.]

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