#fate series
Warning: first draft, not finished, lots of grammatical error, first time writing fanfic, most possibly some misunderstanding of lore, misunderstanding of character’s characterization, I’m sleep deprived, I’m sorry
I just wanna try to see how it would go if Merlin approaches Emiya about Artoria, revolving around her voiceline about Emiya.
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Artoria is always so helpless when it comes to her feelings, Merlin pondered. He often finds her looking at the red bowman from afar with a complicated expression. A crude mix of sadness, longing, and gladness. The reason is obvious to him. He has watched her arduous journey until it brings her to that sleepy port city from the tower that has imprisoned him since time immemorial, or what feels like it anyway. After one certain instance among many times he caught that expression, he decided maybe it doesn’t hurt to do something to ease that pain, if only for this temporary point of time and space. He knows it’s meaningless in the grand scale of things, but maybe the meaninglessness of it doesn’t matter, that it’s okay to do meaningless things, to do human things.
“Hello~ Emiya-kun~” The bowman looked up from his task on the countertop with a hint of surprise in is expression, the skillful hands abruptly stops mincing.
“What’s the matter, Mage of Flowers? Do you require my assistance?” He puts down his knife and looks at him suspiciously. It’s understandable, he has taken upon himself the notoriety of being a bit of a troublemaker to master. Otherwise their relationship has always been amicable, if distant, like many other servants summoned to Chaldea. As the head chef of Chaldea kitchen and the very first* servant to be summoned to Chaldea after the incineration of humanity, he has acquired to himself the strategic position of Chaldea’s homemaker and all-capable handyman thanks to his wide array of skillset and generosity to extend his assistance, among other things.
He has always been in his radar, especially due to his connection to Artoria. Among other reasons, really. He knows enough to be on the man’s good side and to score one favor or two from him in order to enjoy delicious knobs to go with exquisite homebrew alcoholic drinks in his stay at Chaldea.
He knows the bowman has gone out of his way to avoid the knights of round table and anyone connected to it, connected to Artoria. The knights has learned to tiptoe around him as well, in fear of crossing him and getting half the portion of their usual meal as the consequence, but it was a learned behaviour. Every single of them has tried and failed to get the words out of him, about who he is in relation to their king, about their time together in one of her previous summonings. Every single of them has been given a strike and scolding by other members of Chaldea kitchen for badgering their head chef so forcefully. It didn’t quite deter Sir Mordred, who has always been the most headstrong, blunt, and, unfortunately, lacks the ability to recognize social cues, but maybe the Knights knows enough to be responsible towards the member of their ranks, since one day Sir Mordred’s badgering ceased and she’s spotted being physically restrained to stay on her seat by Sir Bedivere and Sir Gareth at breakfast time. Or maybe it's because Artoria has learned about Sir Mordred’s behaviour herself and heavily scolded them all for it. Knights and their passionate concern towards their liege, such lack of subtlety.
In consequence, he supposes the man elects to be wary of him by association as well. It’s unfortunate, he wouldn’t have mind sharing a drink with him and listening to his story, and the Knights’ behaviour has set him back a bit in achieving that. Though, now he decides to give it a go anyway. He’s confident in his way with words and the relatively good ratio between ‘scoring favor’ and 'getting caught red handed causing trouble’ he has. It’s only natural, really, everyone does him a favor in return of a good meal or endless helping hand he provides. If you refuses to help Emiya, you’re just being a jerk.
His plan begins with an invitation to share a drink. Naturally, the man stares at the invitation with suspicion and wariness. But he’s learned that the man almost never refuses a request of assistance from anyone. He felt a bit guilty for exploiting that point of weakness but just as quickly squashed it down. Moral conscience has never been his strong suit.
Before the man could refuse, he quickly elaborated,
“There’s this unique liquor I found in Rome singularity that might interest you. I also want to ask for your help to replicate the taste, Emiya-kun, what do you say?”
And just like that, he agreed to meet him in his room.
He has learned from the past Chaldea drinking parties that Emiya is a bit of a lightweight, and it turns out to be true. Of course, he’s careful not to make him intoxicated to the point of falling asleep. After a few glasses of the relatively weak liquor he served (with a bit of a secret enchantment** to encourage honesty in it, he wouldn’t dare to actually cast a forceful spell on him, in fear of angering Artoria. Even right now he’s on the verge of crossing the line. He’s not sure how, but it’s a bit of irrational fear he has. Somehow Artoria always knows, curse her Intuition Rank A.), he has successfully incited the man to pour out his thoughts to him. It’s quite adorable, really, that the usually serious, goal-oriented, matter-of-fact warrior lets himself loose and chatters his problems away to him like this.
His complaints range from his friction with the Child of Light and King of Heroes, dubbed as 'the tactless mutt’ and 'tacky goldie’ respectively, the Berserker version of the Child of Light who refuses to participate in Chaldea’s mealtimes despite his efforts, Miss Tamamo Cat who sometimes shows up on her shift with her 3rd ascension on (whom then has to be whisked away by Mrs Boudica and Mrs Minamoto from cafeteria), to his concern for master, being a nagging parental figure he is. It truly was a delight to listen to, it’s akin to watching a kaleidoscope of the colorful and sometimes, pardon his language, insane daily life of Chaldea’s inhabitants. It’s almost like everyone are all connected to Emiya in some way. But as delightful as it is, he has to put it aside. There’s something specific that he needs to ask to him.
“How about the King of Knights, Emiya-kun? Does she cause trouble to you?” The man suddenly stops on his track, surprised. He lowers his glass, putting it down the table. He looks thoughtfully into the glass, but his attention has drifted away much further than its rim, to a certain woman. Maybe not even the same woman who shares their existence in Chaldea. For a small stretch of silence he does nothing but fiddling with the clear piece of cylinder.
“Saber…” He starts. “She has always been coming to cafeteria for every meal without fail.”
“She sure enjoys to eat a lot!” The mage chimes in. The man laughed softly.
“Yes, her appetite has caused a strain on Chaldea’s food supply in the past, but it’s been dealt with now.”
“Hahaha, It’s quite a surprise. When she was alive, she’s never seem all that eager to eat. In retrospect, it’s probably due to Gawain’s inexplicable ability to turn everything he cooks into plain mashed potato.” He smiles sympathetically.
“Do you know what happened to her, Emiya-kun? This big brother has noticed that there’s a certain tension between the both of you.”
His expression turns solemn.
“Sorry, it’s my fault. when she first arrived, she approached me, but I said something that causes things to be….. uncomfortable, between us.”
“Hmmm… I’m sure you’re not at fault fully, she has always been an interpersonally inept child.” He paused, pretending to think, before immediately committing his next move.
“Know what, I might be able to set things straight between you two, I’ve known her since young age after all!”
“There’s no need, Merlin-san, the blame is all mine.”
“Sigh, you’re so stubborn, Emiya-kun. Now I’m curious, what exactly did she say to you? I really want to help you two reconcile.”
He hesitates, but in the end opens his lips,
“As you might have already known, I and several other servants was summoned in a certain Holy Grail War, including the King of Knights. We retain the memory of that summoning, but she… I don’t quite remember her. Or she might have mistaken me for someone else, either of the two. It might be because of the different nature of which I became a heroic spirit compared to other heroes, but my memory of that war seems to be incomplete.”
He lied. No, it might not necessarily be a lie, but it’s not a complete truth either. To resist the effect of the enchanted liquor, it must be something he truly want to bury within himself. Or something he countlessly told to himself as the truth
“She’s looking for Shirou Emiya." The man’s head whipped towards him, startled.
"I’m… I’m sorry, I’m not whoever you think I am.” He looked down, as if apologetic. He becomes visibly distraught, eyes glassy, as if he didn’t actually speak to the person in front of him.
“Your True Name is Shirou Emiya, right?”
He suddenly rose from his seat, his mouth agape struggling for words. He breathed heavily, strunggling for air as well. It’s clear that he’s overwhelmed by emotions, something the mage has never seen before from the usually calm and composed bowman, but as soon as it comes, he froze. He closed his eyes, and in an instant regains his composure. No, rather, he closed off his emotions. As he opens his eyes, A pair of empty silver orbs stares back at the mage.
“I’m sorry. That name… I’m not the boy she’s looking for.”
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*) Referring to player’s tutorial summon
**) made up magic I’m sorry lmao
wooo im tired
medusa as usual is way easier to draw, i hate spiky hair ._.
I worked for hours to inflict emiyas’ ‘can you believe this sht’ face on myself
m ma i d…. can’t finish the outline today….
housewife (cool) and househusband (scary) who may or may not have criminal past
i gave up on the cat almost immediately
didn’t get enough sleep bc of this but I’m gonna give it one more try on getting shishou on upcoming PU so I gotta do it
edit: nvm! didn’t get her but at least I can mlb the archer ce
drawing sadboi
@akujiki_s
found this really cool shadow emiya sprite edit, go to @pd_n_bq if you like it
check @mugonnoasa on twt, they drew the fake shadow emiya sprite
we need shadow emiya from singularity F SO BADLY
5* arts pretender with 10 NP hitcounts. I want premium version of archer emiya.
Officially distributed SNS icon and banner free to use
CBC’s appeal being mainly on the CEs is kinda meh honestly, especially bc the gameplay value is usually zero, but it works regardless bc they may feature the servants that you like from how plentiful it is (2 5*, 3 4*, and 4 3* CEs) and you’ll be hyped anyway, and I can’t deny that myself. But. With how big the pool is, I really wish there’s some way to get a raised rate up on specific CE of each rarity, bc I’ve gotten not one not two but THREE Odysseus before I managed to mlb Exclusive Tailor (only 2 copies so far). And I believe I’m just cursed with some unique kind of unluckiness bc this
happened when, just for the hell of it, I tried the appmedia gacha simulator. it means after 843sq spent, I got 4 copies of Altjuna and several SSR spooks that aren’t displayed here, and 3 Oberon CEs yet I didn’t even manage to get 1 copy of Water Gun Battle. It’s more horrifying than anything else that I get that lucky and yet unlucky at the same time, bc many big spenders should’ve gotten that much SSR copy, not me who can’t really afford to spend outside of gssr. It’s a small trivial thing I know, it’s just a CE and it’s usually not that useful gameplay wise, but this is a really ridiculous situation that’s really weird that it happens at all, I just want some pretty CEs dammit.
