CATHARSIS is a non-canon OC fate/series site, loosely based off of fate/apocrypha. Knowledge of the fate/series canon is helpful, but knowledge of fate/apocrypha isn't needed!
Post by Paris of Troy on Aug 11, 2014 16:36:57 GMT
Paris frowns as he appraises the boy, but eventually raises his arms. "I'll let you be the one to judge that, Master. If you want to toss me off to someone else, well, I'd rather not, but it's your decision. Just don't think you're the only one who was ever afraid to go to war. Probably not much of a secret, but when I heard the Spartans were coming, I wanted to head for the hills."
He wasn't really inspiring confidence right now, but in it's own way, that was the point. "I'm just trying to say, I really don't think anyone would look down on you for not wanting to fight. I didn't want to, but I needed to. Both back then, and now. If you don't need to fight, then by all means, there's absolutely no reason why you should. I'm sorry for assuming otherwise, I really am. But I still think you have a reason to fight, and the fact that we're contracted together proves that."
Walking up to the teenage boy, Paris places an arm on his shoulder and smiles. "But I am going to be obstinate about one thing...and that's that your father really should be moved to someplace safer. This is no place for someone on the mend, he needs a bed at least. Can you do that for me, for my sake? Besides, you need to find someone else to be my Master, don't you?"
Afraid? Everything wise and comforting Paris said was suddenly met with a big, great angry fire, consuming every last good thought inside of him. He wasn't afraid! And he didn't care about what others thought! He wasn't like him. Marcos could feel old resentment spurring to the surface and he knew better than to have a tangle with it right now. He washed out the flash of anger from his face, recalling in a brief struggle the tension across his muscles that wanted to punch, sway, and kick. He tried to focus and listen to the hand on his shoulder.
It still felt infuriating. It still felt like the entire world had misheard him and put him in this difficult, unreasonable situation. Why? Was this all just a dream?
Marcos swallowed and looked anywhere but up. What time was it? He looked at the phone and saw that he hadn't hang up. Neither had his mother. Marcos checked the line. He could hear the whizzing of a car.
"Ma?" He got a response instantly. Marcos' heart began pacing rapidly. How much had she heard? But in their quick exchange, there was no indication that she did. After some words in Spanish, he said goodbye and hang up.
"My mother's coming to pick us up," Marcos told Paris. "We'll pack up real quick and fly back to England - we're in Germany," he added quickly, "We'll meet my mother on the road. He'll have his bed on the plane. Should I call Father? Oh, maybe Mother already did..."
Paris of Troy (sorry for the delay. was thinking hard on marcos' respond xD after this thread, we'll actually get to thread out the transferring of command seals! so yes, on the last part, he was actually referring to nero. merls said we could thread \o/)
Paris could detect a hint of tension in the face of his Master, but otherwise things looked good. So he kept smiling. "I'm sure things'll work out right, however they do. I'm willing to just take things as they come."
He leans back on a tree as Marcos talks into the phone. This was a bit of an unusual situation, but things were looking up. One way or another, he'd get to fight. To be honest, Paris didn't much care. He liked the kid, but he'd be just as happy to spare him what a war could bring, especially in a war between Heroic Spirits.
"Well that's good." he says, responding to Marcos' situation report,but he frowns slightly as he gets more information. "If we're going to meet them on the road, should we take your pop along with us? Might not be the best idea to try and move him, unless your healing is absolutely phenomenal." He shouldn't underestimate magic, but that man had been a wreck not fifteen minutes ago. Eventually, he shrugs. "But hey, for the time being, you're my Master. So I might as well do what you say, right?"
He was hoping Paris would offer. Master or not, it didn't feel right to ask a legendary figure (no matter the greatness of their deed) to do something for him. Even a please seemed undeserving to make.
"We should take him with us," Marcos said though he sounded a bit hesitant. "I'm pretty confident about my healing so he should be fine. This is actually the second life-threatening incident I had to heal him. Maybe that's why..."
He finally looked at his father again to see once more the state that he was in. He looked like he was sound asleep but there was no way his father was going to let himself drift to unconsciousness. When something important was at stake, Marcos' father would turn insomniac until he could resolve things. He would not sleep without being assured he could do so peacefully.
"If only we have a stretcher. Or a clothe that we could have him lie on and drag - " Marcos' jaw dropped and he promptly hit his face with his hand. "Oh. Right."
Marcos spread his hands above his father with a look of concentration. In a little while, a wind picked up from out of the blue. Marcos felt the chill through his jacket but he paid no mind to it. It then started whipping violently but in the next second, it calmed down. Finally, when nothing seemed to be happening, his father slowly rose in the air with a bed of concentrated, swirling wind underneath him.
Maybe this was a bad idea, but Marcos decided to keep on pushing himself to try. Anything that required concentration should be something up his alley. But would he be able to walk? He'd done this exercise flawlessly before. On a vase. Right now, he couldn't even look at where he was going.
Paris blinks as Marcos' father begins to float on a bed of air, and heaves a sigh. "You know, you sure know a lot of neat tricks for someone who likes saying he's inexperienced. But I guess that shows more what I know about magi." Stepping over to the injured man, he glances up at his Master, who was straining rather obviously. "Master, is there anything I can do to help?" That was about all he could do in the situation...his job was to fight other Servants. In situations like this, he wasn't nearly as useful.
Eventually, however, he gets rather impatient with having nothing to do, and decides to come up with some task for himself. Glancing over at the path his Master was taking, he busied himself by clearing the way of debris. Whatever Marcos was doing, it obviously required a lot of concentration. If it broke because he'd accidentally tripped on a rock, well, that'd be a real shame. The work was mind-numblingly boring, but hey, he'd take boring over action-packed anyday, especially since he'd doubtless be getting a lot of action in the future.
As Paris thought, the task was requiring every bit of Marcos' concentration. He compensated the slow pacing with large strides though it made it harder to keep his father levitated along with him. In theory, the magic was simple. Compress air strong and fast enough and it would act solid. In practice, it was hard. Doable, but hard. And in more than ten seconds, it was a serious drain of prana. Having to cover an entire adult body, Marcos' reserve of prana was rushing out like a big leak on a dam.
He didn't want to say anything to Archer about it. Marcos didn't want to cause more worry for the Heroic Spirit. There was a chance that the prana quality the Amuro Crest shaped would make up for the lost quantity from the summoning and the healing he did. He might make it though it would be a just barely.
At last, at a distance, Marcos could see the flood of light from street lamps where a lone car waited.
"Archer, there's a favour I want to ask from you," he said quickly. "Can you change to your spiritual form? And - er -" The air on his father's lower body was slipping. Marcos hastily rebuilt the layers, wasting more precious prana. "Don't talk to my mother about this. She isn't going to take it well."
Paris of Troy (Paris gets the best first job as a Servant. Keeping his Master safe from a lurking rock's harm.)
Post by Paris of Troy on Aug 18, 2014 17:55:22 GMT
Archer perked up a bit as Marcos spoke up, but what was said disappointed him thoroughly. Essentially, his first order as a Heroic Spirit was to get out of the way and shut up. If he had been a more prideful man, he might have taken some direct offense to that, but he was used to being a bit lower on the totem pole, so he did it without question.
When he does vanish, however, the reasoning behind his Master's words become obvious. He can feel the flow of prana to him diminish, and through the link he shares with the boy, finds out just how taxes Marcos' prana reserves were. Still, he didn't like being kept in the dark about these kinds of things. While the names of their roles were Master and Servant, they were supposed to be partners in the Holy Grail War. "You know, if you're running low on prana, that's a lot more worthy a reason behind your order than wanting me out of the way. Just saying."
As they step into the light, he sees the lone vehicle in the quiet country road. Turning back to his Master, he shrugs. "Is that the person we're looking for? Maybe with the woman I'm not supposed to talk to? Just want to make sure I'm in the know about this stuff. I'd prefer not to make any dumb mistakes if I can avoid it."
When Paris had gone into his spirit form, Marcos didn't expect a voice to come out. He almost lost his concentration and dropped his internally-wounded father to the ground.
Wanting Archer out of the way? Why would Marcos want that? But coupled with Paris discovering Marcos' low prana made Marcos bite into his own embarrassment and stay silent. He didn't really ask Paris to go into spirit form to conserve prana (he didn't even know it had an effect like that). Marcos didn't want Paris to startle his mother. Unlike Marcos and his father, she was a completely normal person who had nothing to do with the magus world save for having married into one.
"Yeah," he whispered, not sure how or if he was able to talk back to Paris. His words of "dumb mistakes" stuck to Marcos though for a different reason than what Paris might be referring to. Finishing the summoning was the dumbest mistake in Marcos' life. He recalled what Paris said about the two of them sharing something in common, but the thought got pushed away as his mother caught sight of him.
Marcos rushed over toward the car, eager to get his father down.
"Ma, la puerta."
His mother didn't need to be told. She opened the door to the backseat and watched as Marcos lowered his hands, directing the compressed layers of wind to bring his father inside. He didn't release the magic until every inch of his father was laid down. Once he did, the ground spun a little. Marcos closed his eyes, his hands still in the air as if to balance himself. He heard his mother ask how he was out of concern, to which Marcos merely nodded as he circled around the car and get in the front seat.
Crashed into the seat anyway. That was one goal accomplished, one step closer to putting an end to all of this. Then he would be going back to his old life, resuming his usual routines, though maybe it would be a bit different with his father's state but should it be a terrible change?
Marcos didn't think about it. He wanted to sleep and forget about things for a while but he could not indulge to his selfishness yet. The trip back home was going to be full of explanations. There wasn't a lot to tell but the thought of recounting what happened was pressing heavily on him. When they began driving, Marcos dove in and broke the silence.
--- (end thread? not the best last post for a thread but don't think I can do anything about it without rambling xD I'm game if you wanna keep on rping this or in another thread, maybe when they get to the house. if not, we can fly to england.)
