unknown brother

Post by Hector of Troy on Sept 6, 2014 3:56:25 GMT

Hector had never expected to be so alone when the Grail had first called him to the world. His Master had, of course, dismissed him at first glance, citing some pessimistic ideology about losing that Hector did not quite understand. Basically, he had been given free reign so long as he did not allow his Master to come to harm and stayed alive long enough to protect his Master from all potential threats. Even those criteria were mostly self-imposed.

In the enduring afternoon daylight, when there was no fighting to be had and all hope of finding the Red Rider and the warrior-magus of the previous night were gone, Hector found the only thing to do was hone his skills. Perhaps the more energy efficient option might have been to sleep off the wasted hours or dissolve into spirit form, but Rider had been quite shaken from his latest encounter. In a world where the strength of his spear was entirely nullified (not dodged, as Achilles had done), Hector found the most suitable use for his time was practice to put his mind at ease.

Donned in full battle attire, gleaming helmet and all, the Trojan prince took his stance and launched javelin after javelin at an unsuspecting tree. Perfect strike after perfect strike. Without the addition of his prana, the trunk remained relatively intact, save for deep gouges in the wood. Rider prayed that whatever nymph dwelt in the heart of the tree would forgive him; there were not many suitable targets lying around in the forest.

As the sun passed along overhead and the day began to fade, Hector’s mind continued to dwell on his failed opportunities the day before. Disappointment infused every thought. In spite of all the warriors that had fought for him, in spite of all the men he had killed fighting for his city, he still could not take the life of a single, half-dead magus? How could he not even pose a threat to another Servant? His pride as champion of Troy was at stake now; he would not allow himself to miss his mark again and risk the disgrace of his family and title.  "The next Servant I meet dies," he muttered to himself as he let fly his javelin once more.

The weapon sank into the wood with a resounding thunk as the shadows of the forest lengthened and evening began to set in.


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Post by Paris of Troy on Sept 6, 2014 15:37:33 GMT



Paris felt the presence of a Servant in the forest as soon as he stepped through the trees. Materializing the bow he had been given to fight as his class, he slowly parses through the trees, hunting his prey in the forest like he was back to living in the wilderness.



He enjoyed the outdoors. The forest where he was called to fight wasn't so different from the forests of mountainous Troy that he couldn't appreciate it. The air still smelled like trees, and the ground had a nice crunch underneath him that he just remembered he needed to quiet down if he was going to sneak up on anybody.



Soon enough, he heard loud thunks sounding, and pressed up behind a tree, facing the opposite direction from the sound. Slowly but surely, he crept up closer to the source of the sound, masking his presence as best he could. Seeing a man who could only be the servant he was tracking continuously throwing spears against a tree, he draws his bow and silently nocks an arrow, pulling back the string.



There's no way it can be this easy... Paris thinks to himself as he aims down the sight. Then again, he wasn't going to pass up a chance to take out one of the competition for this little effort.  He didn't avenge his brother's death by being honorable about things, after all.



Loosing the arrow, he runs from his current location as fast as he can while still being silent, repositioning to a different location and nocking another arrow down the bow. As long as he can stay out of sight the better, he didn't think that one arrow would be enough to take down a Heroic Spirit.





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Post by Hector of Troy on Sept 7, 2014 4:50:13 GMT

At first, Hector did not know what hit him. One moment, he had lofted his weapon through the air. The next, a dull thud resonated through his body as armor and bone were pierced and splintered. A glance down revealed the damage to disbelieving eyes; the arrow had sprouted from his chest before he had even realized an enemy was nearby, and a bloom of crimson was quickly spilling from the ragged wound.

It was a good shot. A normal hero might have at least stumbled, the pain and the shock gnawing at them before the next arrow was even released from the string. But Hector felt no pain, only a tugging sensation as flesh and bone began to knit itself back together. The blessing of Apollo was useful like that.

The surprise proved a harder recovery. As Hector tugged at the missile embedded in his chest, he scanned the clearing, expression livid underneath his helm. How could he have let an enemy get so close? It was unacceptable. Bows were the weapons of cowards. The Rider of Black simply refused to allow an Archer (or conceivably, a bow-wielding Assassin) to spill another drop of his blood.

As he ripped the arrow free, he voiced his outrage, loud words ringing through the clearing. “Coward!” he snarled, whirling about before deciding on the direction that the arrow came from. “You would dare call yourself a Heroic Spirit, sneaking through the shadows without the courage to face your opponent?” With a surprising burst of speed, Hector dashed toward the trees, summoning his weapon back to his hand as he did. Of course, he found nothing. The archer had smartly changed positions.

Hector seethed. “If you are a hero, then show your face! Craven archer! Have you no pride?” Admittedly, it would be an incredible blunder for a wielder of the bow to risk discovery and consequent melee fighting. Words would most likely not bring out the assailant, and Rider knew that. In the midst of his rage, he kept his cool head. He guessed that the enemy would have to fire another shot, and then he would find his target. All that was left to do was wait for the arrow.


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Post by Paris of Troy on Sept 7, 2014 21:34:31 GMT

As Paris relocates himself to the next spot to take the shot at, he sneaks a glance at his opponent. He's not close enough to make out anything truly specific, but a sense of dread seems to come into him. It wasn't really as if he was biting off more than he could chew here, though he probably was. It was more a general sense that he should not be doing what he is doing. He shakes his head, probably some enchantment in place by either the Servant or his Master.



He notices that the opposing Servant doesn't cry out in pain at all as he hears the thunk of his arrow. Such a thing wasn't unheard of, many Servants were simply beyond pain, and far more still were above little darts like his arrows. He wasn't a powerhouse, not by a long shot. Clambering quickly up one of the trees, he fires a bolt from the higher branches, before jumping to another tree and moving to the side through the forest.



Then the challenge sounded through the woods. He'd have to have been deaf to fail to hear it. Normally, he'd blow off the overwrought soundings of an arrogant blowhard and keep doing what he was doing. But not this. That sound chilled him to the bone.



"It's not possible...it can't be..." He whispers to himself.



He decides to gamble a bit. He attempts to throw his voice a bit, but at this point, he doesn't really care if he's discovered or not. "Me? Not really. Never been much for the whole 'glory and honor' thing. I have a brother who is, though. An older brother I met late, but never stopped looking up to, even after he was stolen from me."



As he soliloquizes, he tries to close the distance. He has to see the face of the Servant he's facing. If it is in fact Hector, then he'll have some apologies to make. His bow is replaced, he's not going to shoot someone who might be important to him, despite the fact that if he was right, then the shots wouldn't really accomplish anything.





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Post by Hector of Troy on Sept 9, 2014 23:44:21 GMT

At the sound of sing-songy words floating through the trees, Hector’s head whipped around and he strained to listen for the source. So focused on his task, he barely even realized the familiarity of the voice until it had stopped. How odd it was, to hear such a sound that belonged in a past life, a voice from the fleeting moments of discussions through palace hallways, words that were choked by dust on the grounds before Troy…

The voice was so eerily Paris that it was unnerving.

The white-hot rage in his chest died down in an instant, shock once again filling the void. Hector faltered, lowering his spear and straining to hear more clearly. Had it simply been a trick of sound, a Servant’s way of throwing him off his game? But the words were so achingly close to his own heart that he simply could not ignore the possibility. The word ‘brother’ echoed through his helmet, and he awaited silence before he answered. All thoughts of locating the source seemed less important.

“Your brother must be proud of you, coward though you are,” he replied, feeling as though his words were sand in his mouth. Carefully, he scanned the trees for any sign of movement. “Becoming a Heroic Spirit is no easy feat. The gods must favor you, to give you such an honor if you do not care for such.”

Perhaps it was foolish, but Hector had already passed foolish in the rearview mirror when he let his guard down. If this archer was an enemy, he would soon be riddled with arrows. But the truth was more important to him, and family was the reason he was fighting for the Grail in the first place. He had to know. And so he allowed his gleaming helmet to dissolve into silver dust, even if the wound in his chest had not truly healed and a painful protest resounded through his body. A grazed wound from another arrow, one he had not even noticed, began to bleed.

“I too had a brother, a brother who was discarded at birth yet somehow found his way back to us. And he brought doom, aye, but such was fate and he was family.” Hector paused, narrowing his eyes at the briefest twitch of a shadow in the tree branches. And then he really took his risk, because beating around the bush was never Hector’s favorite game to play. “I thought I had told you never to abandon all hopes of glory or semblance of honor, Paris.”


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Post by Paris of Troy on Sept 10, 2014 18:00:23 GMT

Paris laughs. "And I thought I told you to not act like a stodgy old curmudgeon, Hector. Guess that shows how much we listen to each other." His light, easy words just came naturally, perhaps as a coping mechanism to just how deeply this was affecting him.



The thought that something like this could happen over the course of the Grail War had never occurred to him...He might have realized it was possible, but knew that the odds were so astronomically low that he hadn't even bothered to consider it. But here he was, his brother, looking just as he had before the Grecian Achilles had brought him low, and suddenly everything felt right again in the world. Closing the remaining distance in a flash, he gives his brother a hug.



"It..it's really good to see you again." Paris says, words choked by emotion. He doesn't cry, but it's very obvious it's taking about all his concentration to hold back tears. He knew in his head they were supposed to be enemies, that they needed to fight and kill, but that didn't matter to him right then, or honestly, at all. He had his brother back, gods damn it, and that was the most important thing in the world right now.



"You..you could've been a bit less harsh with the insults, you know. They really started to sting near the end." Now the tears started coming.


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Post by Hector of Troy on Sept 21, 2014 5:07:11 GMT

“Brother…” It was Paris. Honest-to-Zeus Paris was standing before him, in the flesh. Unmistakable in such close proximity. Perhaps Hector had known it all along, though in his heart he had refused to believe that such a fate could still be left in store for him.

Hector’s brother had always been the emotional one, the man who had once chosen the promise of love over the promises of power or land. As Paris hugged him, Hector felt a twang of uncertainty. The Servant part of him screamed that this person was an enemy, no matter whose face they wore. Yet Hector would not allow himself to become so swept up in the Holy Grail War so as to forget the reason he was fighting in the first place. He fought for family before he fought for anything else, and this man, this Archer of Red, was blood.

After a moment of pause, Hector returned his brother’s embrace with much gusto, almost forgetting the strength that his Servant body possessed. “Paris, I never expected that I would find you here. And you shot me! Ha! Had I not been a hero of great stamina, you might have ended me right there!” He gave his brother a hearty clap on the back. Truly, Rider was impressed that Paris had managed to threaten him in such a manner, even if archery was the method of cowards. By this point, all of his anger had vanished like smoke.

“I have said worse to you before, have I not?” His voice was uncharacteristically quiet and somewhat uncertain. The fact that Paris seemed so personally offended by his words was wrong. During the Trojan War, Hector had hoped to spur the young prince into action, but he hardly felt as though he had room to insult the man after learning of the events that transpired after his death.

“Paris, do not take my insults so personally. I remember that I learned of your deeds from the Throne of Heroes. How could I doubt you after you.... You did kill the great warrior Achilles, did you not, brother?”


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