....
She and Chrysaor sat there for some moments, both waiting for the other to finally say something. For Monica, this was a test of patience, as she slowly waited for him to elaborate on all the various implications he had presented so far, but he was far too stubborn for that. He sat hunched over with his hand curled around his chin, somber eyes focused on some invisible object as he lost himself in thought. She nearly gave up on him then, walking away to get out of the previous day's clothes, to take a refreshing shower, or perhaps a bath, that would wash the sweat and oil out of her unkempt hair, but there was one last question, one last attempt at answers, one more topic that was too pressing to put off:
"With all that being said..."
He looked up for the first time in a while, his expression defining a clear aversion to whatever she'd say next. He wanted this conversation to be over, or maybe he was waiting for something else?
"-If we do find Assassin again, what will we do? You say you won't turn into a sword again, so what are our options if not that?"
"Ah. Good question." The sadness in his eyes gave way to a sharp focus, "I think revealing her True Name will be enough to scare her off."
"Okay- Wait, what?"
A mischievous, even malicious smirk, uncharacteristic of his normally gentle demeanor, crawled onto his face, "A True Name is the blade every Servant keeps sheathed, the source of their strength, and their weakness. That's why I had you call me- what was it?"
"-Chris?"
"Ah- that. A Servant, you see, becomes stronger due to their legend, but their legend- their name- can just as easily be used against them. They gain powers for each success, and weaknesses from each failure, and everyone fails at least once-" The malice in his eyes shined with the morning light, "Everyone dies."
She could only watch with amazement as Chrysaor showed his devious, scheming side, like a child planning a prank. She'd never seen him so confident.
He stood up and began walking towards the other side of the room, "A Servant's death is their key weakness most of the time, so just letting them know that you know their history, their powers and their death is usually enough in the way of blackmail."
"So, you know who Assassin is? How?" She desperately tried to put the puzzle pieces together in her head, before noticing what Chrysaor was after. On the table in the corner of the living area was- her laptop? It was off now but open, showing obvious and recent use. Around it was scattered pieces of printer paper, but she couldn't make out what was on them from where she was... were they sketches?
He grabbed a sheet of paper, examined it closely, and then began back towards her, "I'm not entirely sure, but I only need you to look at this."
He walked around to the other side of the coffee table and lowered himself to the floor before placing the sheet of paper on the table towards her. On it was a picture-perfect sketch of Assassin: her river-stone smooth skin, her large, sheepish eyes and equally large, downward facing ears. Her curly white hair, and her small but perfect figure, beautiful in her compact curvaceousness. There were two key differences, however. The first and most obvious was her hair. The Assassin she knew had short-cut hair that clung to the sides of her head, but the one in the sketch had long hair that reached her waist. Her outfit was different as well. Rather than the complicated sash-coat and bikini bottom, it was a simpler two-piece with a lace top and a short skirt.
She looked back up at Chrysaor, unable to contain her surprise, "How- This is amazing! I didn't realize you could draw this well!"
He seemed to ignore the praise, "It wasn't really drawing- it was remembering. But this is Assassin, isn't it?"
"Uh-yeah. It looks just like her, except that she has shorter hair and a different outfit."
"Hm. Makes sense." He took back the sheet of paper, examining it himself before putting it down. "My mother knew her, or was aware of her at the very least. She was pretty famous, back in the day. She was a nymph, like my mother, an Oread, a mountain spirit, to be more precise. She had a beautiful voice, and was well known as a friend to Hera herself."
"A friend to the queen of the gods?"
The corners of his mouth twitched, "Yes and no... they weren't close or anything.... More like acquaintances. For one thing, Gods don't really have 'friends'. They're the embodiment of natural forces, selfish, fickle, and not much for emotions. Their relationships are very give-and-take, more like investments than true, personal connections. The other notable detail was Assassin's motives. She and Hera would make small talk and idle conversation, but this was all to distract Hera from Zeus'... mortal exploits."
That's right. Zeus would often go to Earth to romance mortals, or so she vaguely remembered. "So she was his wing-man, basically?"
"That's one way to put it. That was the status-quo at the time my mother was.. exiled, but you don't deceive the gods and get away with it."
"So what happened?"
"Well... I used your computer- I hope you don't mind-"
"-It's fine."
"-And I looked for information. From what I'd found, as punishment for her deception, she lost her voice, and could only speak by repeating what others said."
The puzzle began to fit together in her mind, "That was why she couldn't speak."
"Yes- or more accurately, why she didn't. Had she communicated with us by repeating what we said, her True Name would've become obvious. At least to anyone who knew her story."
"So- what is her name?"
"Echo."
She found herself surprised by such a simple, but appropriate, name. "Oh. How fitting."
"Yes."
"And... her death, her weakness, what is it?"
His familiar, somber expression returned to him as his gaze fell once more, "It seems... it seems that she became enamored with a man cursed to look into a reflective pool until he died. She remained by his side until her body turned to stone, and then she eroded away until only her voice was left."
Click. "Ah." She clapped her hands together, "So that's how she can turn into sound?"
"Seems so, her body and her 'voice' seem to be one in the same."
"So, then, how do we kill her?"
"Hm. There are two ways." He held up one finger, "The first way would be to find a way to 'kill' sound. Either to bypass the properties of her body, or to take advantage of those properties and turn them against her."
She raised her hand, "Or- to deal a lethal blow before she transforms. I cut her that way."
"True, but that's unreliable, it'd be better to fall back on a more solid plan."
"But you said there's another way?"
"Yes." He held up a second finger, "Petrification."
Her brow furrowed, "You want to turn her to stone? How?"
He looked away again, "If she turns to stone, even if she doesn't die from it, she shouldn't be able to cure it either. Being the means of her death, she is quite literally fated to be killed by it."
"I- I get that -I think- but how?" An idea popped into her head, "Wait... don't tell me-"
He gestured to her arm, the red snake wrapped around it hidden underneath her hoodie, "If you use a Command Seal, I should be able to unleash the latent curse of my mother, and maybe- possibly- turn Assassin to stone. That should at least keep her from transforming long enough to cut her."
"You-you can do that? Wait, but you haven't turned me or anyone else you've looked at to stone, so how can you..."
He shook his head, "Her eyes, Medusa's ability to turn people to stone, was a part of her curse, not her divinity, and a part of her that hasn't manifested in either myself or my brother- as far as I know, at least. But, that doesn't mean it isn't a part of me. You could call it a recessive trait. Even if just a drop of that power is inside of me, a Command Spell should be able to draw it out."
She pulled back her sleeve and looked at the strange, angular, trisected serpent that curled around her forearm, "I can do that?"
He nodded, "You certainly can. Your Command Spells can alter a Servant's body- temporarily- even to the smallest possible level. You can control their actions, their physical resilience, their strength... for a being made from the shadows of history, it isn't an exaggeration to say that those Command Spells can control who- or what- a Servant is."
She kept looking at that snake. For reasons that ought to have been obvious, especially given Chrysaor's previous description of what the curse did to his mother, awakening the same curse in him didn't sit well with her, "But what happens then? Would the curse go away... or...?"
He shook his head, "Probably not. It's our last resort."
Her face contorted into something like disgust for the markings on her arm. Her stomach turned at the thought of sacrificing Chrysaor to the same curse that ruined his mother- and for what?
What was the point of any of this? What was the point of fighting and dying for and against complete strangers?
She pulled her sleeve back down and rubbed her forearm. It almost felt like the snake had come alive, and sandpaper scales were pricking her skin as it constricted.
"I suppose... a plan is better than no plan."
"Yes... hopefully it won't come to that."
Her stomach turned and turned and turned and turned, until she couldn't hold herself back any longer, her voice strained by a pain she couldn't understand, "Why are you doing this?"
It was hard not to be surprised by the abrupt question. His eyebrows raised before falling into deep thought as he considered what he said next.
"..."
"..."
"... Every Servant has a wish for the Grail whether they realize it or not. Every Servant has something that they're willing to fight, kill, and die for- appealing to those desires is how the Grail summons them in the first place."
"-But that doesn't answer the question."
He looked at her with total seriousness. For the first time since they'd met, she could imagine his eyes turning someone to stone, "I fight for my wish. I kill to protect, and I die for those who have a future. Does that answer your question?"
She felt like a scolded child. Once again, it seems that she'd stumbled across something that she shouldn't have. Chrysaor suddenly seemed like a poised snake, and she had stepped upon his tail.
As if sensing the fear from her, the sudden impression of her as a deer in the headlights, his eyes immediately softened to regret and he gingerly touched her left forearm, just as he had when they'd met. "Just know that I protect you. You have a future, and I'm here to die for it, just as I said."
She didn't look at him, instead, she looked at his hand as it hovered over her arm. His hands were strangely beautiful: strong and gentle, feminine and precise. More than that, she focused on the snake that lay under her sleeve, the sigils that held the power to control his very being; the markings that put his life in her hands.
"And what about your future?"
He responded quickly, as if he'd heard the question a thousand times before, "A Servant exists beyond past or future, scattered across time and space. I've had an infinite amount of chances to win the Grail and seize my future, and I will have an infinite amount of chances from here-on. I have no future, and I have every future, all at the same time. To put it another way, I am already dead. But you're not. When this body dies again, this step of my non-life will sink away into the abyss as if it never happened, and the next step will appear in front of me, but you- you only have the one...
"...You deserve to have it, and, more than that, you deserve the chance to make the most of it."
Her hand turned, almost on its own, so that her fingers brushed against his wrist, "How could you even say that", she whispered under her breath, unsure of whether she was talking to him or to herself, "We barely know each other."
She felt his eyes, always cast downward, raise to hers even as she continued to stare at her arm, "I've seen a lot. Between my mother's memories and mine, I've seen and met many different people, many kinds of people. Dead people. Living people. Ugly people. Beautiful people. And I've seen many things. Temples full of gold and silk, cities full of ivory and decadence. What I see in you... is a masterpiece waiting to be completed; oils and pastels on an abandoned easel. I see what you are, and I see what you could be. I don't know what the full picture is yet, but I believe that it's worth fighting for."
She felt her cheeks become hot as her heart stopped. Her mind which was swirling seemed to suddenly freeze over while her breath got caught in her throat.
Confused by the wave of conflicting emotions that washed over her and caught itself in all her mind, heart, and throat, she grabbed her arm back, as if a hot iron had been placed against it, and stood with a suddenness unbecoming of the gentle conversation. "I- I'm going to go take a shower now."
She scampered off to the door behind her, face flushed red, doing her best to stay faced away from Chrysaor, and disappeared into the bathroom, shutting the door behind quickly and with force, audibly locking it.
As Chrysaor sat confused and taken aback, terribly unsure what to do with himself, Monica called out from the bathroom, "When I'm done, we're going back out to look for the overseer again, okay?! There are more places I want to check!"
Still processing the events of the last few seconds, he could only stammer under his breath, "O-okay?"
...
He decided to pretend that he couldn't hear her cry.
When Monica would look back on this conversation, she would realize it was here that she swore to protect Chrysaor, just as he swore to protect her. It was his gentle words that, more than any other moment in her life, altered the course of her future.
....