...
"I said: Have a seat."
Gravity seemed to shift, and she and Chrysaor both began to fall, as if thrown, towards the far window. Each of them landed squarely in one of the armchairs- they spun with the force as if on wheels before righting themselves towards the coffee table. At the same time, metal bands burst from the arms and underside of the chair, binding their legs and wrists. They struggled against the shackles, but in vain.
Back at the bar, Dionysus placed the glasses and ice bucket on a silver tray sitting in his hand, carrying the bottle of whiskey in the other and bringing both to the table, taking his own seat on the sofa across from them.
Athena continued to fight uselessly against her bindings.
"Let us go!"
"No can do, my fair lady. But, so long as you're my captive audience, you may as well listen to what I have to say. I rather have a proposition for you."
"Why should we listen to a word you have to say!?"
"Because, my lady, my wish is your wish. Our aims are aligned."
"How it that?" She spat, "You don't know me. You don't know what I want."
"Ha. You underestimate me." He gestured a lazy hand towards Chrysaor, "He is your wish, no?"
She reflexively backed deeper into the cushion of her chair, remaining silent. How did he know? Had he been watching her? For how long?
"Yes," He responded, as if to her inner thoughts, "I've seen it all. How you faun over one another. How you cozy up underneath the covers. How you truly care for one another."
He raised his hands, as if to deflect an accusation that had never come, "Don't get me wrong. There's no judgment. I support you completely. Which is why I propose a thought experiment. Imagine a world where you and he could spend your eternity together-"
The world seemed to fall away, and her vision went dark. Her other senses, contrarily, seemed to tingle, her ears and her skin both responding to the must subtle movements of the air.
"You could be with him forever. And not just him-"
She felt hands moving up and down her body, fingers gently caressing all her corners. She arched her back, lurching in response to the sensitive and sudden touch, but soon recognized the hands as that of her friend, of Chrysaor, and couldn't help but lean into it, even though the hands were countless, and more than any one man should have.
"You could have your Chrysaor. You could have three, thirty, three hundred-! As much or as little time with your beloved or beloveds as you wish. A world, a romance, of your very own design."
She bit her lip, and the hands fell away. She found herself back in the parlor, and her senses normal except for the severe flush in her cheeks.
"I- no. Why would I want that? How could I ever ask for that? That's not real."
"What is real? Why should it matter?"
"It matters-" She paused. It was difficult to put into words, "Because it doesn't have any value otherwise."
"And why is that?"
"Because-! How else am I supposed to know that he loves me?"
"I do love you, Athena!" Chrysaor shouted out, with a degree of frustration and desperation in his voice, "Don't listen to him!"
"The adults are speaking." Caster waved his hand, and Chrysaor, along with his chair, were gone in a blink, as if they were never there, "He does love you, Athena. I know this. You know this. What I'm giving you is the chance to have his love forever. You and your Chrysaor, your friend. You will never be apart, not so long as you wish it so. Moreover, when I seize the Chalice, I will make this a reality for everyone who should wish for it. Everyone who loves as deeply as you two. All will see their dreams come to life before their very eyes- you included, dear."
"That's not real."
At this point, Caster's voice was becoming strained by impatience, "And why not?"
"Because if something is real, you have to be able to lose it! That's how you know it's real! You can only know if someone loves you because they have the ability to leave you, but choose not to! You can only know you love them when you feel the weight of their absence, and the fear of that absence going on for even a second longer than it needs to. If he can't walk away, if we can't ever be apart, then how can there ever be any love?"
"Even if by death do you part? Can you really tolerate that?"
A pit opened in her stomach, but she pushed the words out regardless, "How can there be love in a world without death? What's the point of protecting someone if there's nothing to be protected from? Comforting someone when comfort is all they have? Why give someone everything you have if there's no consequences for not doing it? What's the point of being willing to die for someone if there's no chance of death?"
She thought back to the people she'd met, the man who had spurned her, and the dear friend who had taken her own life.
"...What are promises in a world that will never call your bluff?"
"Ah- I see how it is." He stroked his goatee, "Real this, real that. How prideful you are, girl. So prideful as to think that you have the right to decide True and False for everyone else."
"I'm not-!"
"You think that just because you're such a glutton for punishment, you can decide everyone else's burdens. You preach and prattle about promises and consequences, but you're just looking to prove yourself. To whom? To yourself? To him? You think you can take away paradise for everyone else, and why? Just because your pride won't allow you to take the easy way out?"
"It's not pride!" She stamped her foot as best as she was able, "It's the truth! And it's true for everyone whether they admit it or not! It's the truth! Simple Truth!"
A voice echoed through her head, breaking her building rage, 'Athena! Can you hear me?'
Her eyes jumped around the room, searching for her Chrysaor, but doing her best, in the midst of her panic, to not appear as if she were.
She didn't see him anywhere.
'I can! Where are you? Are you okay?'
'What do you mean you can't see me!? I haven't gone anywhere! I've been trying to speak, but both of you were ignoring me!'
'I wasn't-'
'I know. That's how I figured out something was wrong. There must be some kind of illusion in play, but don't worry. I'm still right here beside you.'
She looked at the place where Chrysaor had been. She strained her eyes as best as she was able, scrutinizing every particle of air between herself and the window, searching for any kind of inconsistency, any sign of a physical object or optical illusion. Eventually, like vapor in the air, there seemed to be a disturbance, as if there were tears or eraser strokes on the face of reality where the faded shadow of her friend could be seen, and the distant echo of his voice could be heard. He was, in fact, truly there. He was still beside her.
"Yes, Athena, look around you."
A shiver ran down her back and the apparition disappeared back into the shadows of the parlor. There was something about hearing her name spoken by his black voice, smooth, thick and cold like oil- as if it were seeping into the corners of her mind unwanted and uninvited.
"For all your talk of truth, the truth is that, right now, you are in my world. You are dancing in the palm of my hand and even now my fingers are closing in, threatening to squash you where you stand. There is no escape, but there is a choice."
He brought the shot glasses over to him. He set one of the empty glasses in front of him and began to pour the whiskey.
"You could allow my blessings, my power, to pour into you, and fill the vessel of your soul to its top. Your dreams will come true and you will spend all eternity- yes, dear, I said eternity- in unending bliss with the one or ones whom you love and cherish."
He set the bottle down and grabbed a piece of ice from the small bucket. He went to place it in the glass, but the ice-sphere was easily the size of a golf ball, and sat on top of the glass rather than going in.
"Or, you could remain obstinate. At first, it may seem that resistance is viable, but-"
He brought a fist down on the ice, and the glass didn't hold. It shattered, scattering shards of glass over the table, whiskey spilling and dripping onto the floor, and the sphere of ice balancing precariously on the glass's exposed base.
"My will is absolute. Your soul will shatter and you will die in agony, each fragment of your mind screaming in pain and feeling for the place where wholeness had been, but all you will find there is myself, and you will be forevermore reminded of your own folly. This is the truth that you so dearly craved, my girl. Not as pleasant as you had thought, eh?"
She scoffed, "My options are to lie or to die? That's what you're saying."
She took a deep breath, reason told her it was wiser to stay quiet, but the words demanded to be spoken all the same.
"You talk like you have people's best interest at heart, but you're just a tyrant! You say that I'm forcing my ideals on others, but that's you! You're the one saying that people can't pursue their dreams on their own terms!"
"No, no, you misunderstand me, dear. There is certainly a choice. I don't intend to overturn the natural order of things -the natural order that you mistake for Truth- all I want is an alternative for those who see that, perhaps, the natural order is not the best it could be."
"Sorry if I don't believe you."
He glared at her with his nose in the air, but she could make out a gear turning from behind his anger. He snapped his fingers. The left side of the couch that he was sitting on spun as if on an axel, and when it had turned around there was a woman she had never seen before. She was slender, a bit tall by the standards of her sex, with long, dark hair, and she wore a women's suit. However, despite her respectful appearance, she sat like a puppet whose strings had gone limp, her joints bending in odd and uncomfortable angles. On a neck which was bent like a mountain road, a vacant, smiling face stared a thousand yards away with corpse-like violet eyes as a drip of drool fell onto her lapel.
She saw the threat in his action. This woman was the one who had tried to resist him, and who had been shattered in the end.
"Aisha," he continued, "Explain."
The puppet found her strings, turning upright as if being dragged and speaking with exaggerated, animated movements of the hands and head, such as in a child's cartoon, "The Theoretical Pruning Phenomenon. From the core of human history, nearly countless possible futures emerge. These futures are, however, only nearly countless, as any history which too greatly contradicts the core of the history's premise, humanity and the natural order, are pruned. The possibility ceases to exist and can never manifest itself in any way without the use of the First Magic."
The puppet fell limp, her strings cut once more.
"So you see, my goals are rather modest. I won't pretend to try and be some supreme deity, some God, I know I'm not. But as regards God, the Universe, Reality, Truth, whatever name you give it, there remain those who are tyrannized by it. Oppressed by it. What I offer, then, is an alternative. A place for those who've been wronged. A place for those who dream so desperately but are always denied by that cruel Truth. How could you say that it's tyranny to give people the freedom to become whatsoever they desire? Is it not rather more authoritarian to say: 'These are the rules, and you must follow them, even to the grave. You had no say in these rules, nor in how they are enforced, and yet you must remain loyal to them, or else face the sword'?
"Who among us is the tyrant, girl? Me or Nature? Is it the God who wishes to be the only Truth, the only god, a jealous and cruel Reality who snuffs all dreams who do not comport to His design, or the one who is humble enough to be one little god among many? One choice among a thousand?"
The puppet had spouted words beyond her understanding. She had no patience for the jargon and had stopped listening long before Caster had begun his monologue. Instead, she thought. She meditated. She reflected. This was Caster's world. It was not the world of Truth, which meant, by necessity, it was a world of Lies. Caster was a liar, a skilled one, but she knew enough. She knew the weakness that all lies had and which all truth lacked.
Seeing that his words had not found much purchase, he reached over and touched her hand -she flinched- to get her attention, and made a final push for negotiation, "I see you are a girl who values freedom, choice, very highly. Perhaps, then, I have misjudged you. Yes, you did not choose to be a Master, did you? You didn't want this war, you didn't want to fight, but you felt that you had no choice, am I wrong? Another one of reality's cruel jokes, no doubt. So, I am willing enough to let you have the freedom you desire."
He waved his hands and the shot glasses, the bottle, the ice, and the mess that had been made by the shattering all disappeared.
"You can go. You're free. From this war, from this realm, and from my so-called 'tyranny'. All I need before you go is that little mark on your arm."
She looked down at her right arm. There was the head of the red snake, the last Command Seal she had. This seal made her Chrysaor's Master, and he her Servant.
"Give me that Command Seal, or, better yet, use it. Order your Servant to do whatever you wish. Then, you may go. After that, you'll both be free. Does it not occur to you that, up to now, you've both been trapped in a reality beyond your control: you in this war, and he in his Servanthood? I seem to remember that you worried about him wanting to leave but not being able to. Has it not occurred to you that what you fear has been the reality you've lived in since he was summoned?
"If you wish to have him in the sort of free love which you desire, the only way to do that is to give him that absolute freedom, the freedom to leave, and the freedom to be lost. Yes, there's always the chance that, if you do so, he may not return, but isn't that fear -that possibility of loss and pain- exactly what you've been arguing for? It would be a bit hypocritical to choose otherwise, no?"
She absorbed his words carefully. At first, she found it strange that Chrysaor had nothing to say, but she realized it was precisely in-character. Perhaps it was out of a respect for her free will. Perhaps he was still afraid that she wasn't as resolved as she claimed. In that sense, he had every right to test her. If she walked away now, then there was no reason for him to take even a single step forward.
"You tell a lot of lies, Caster. You're good at it, too. You evade, you distract, but, more than anything else, you tell people what they want to hear. You tell them things that they want so badly to be true that they start to believe they really are, even when their eyes and ears and every part of them says otherwise. As for me-"
She stood up from her chair, her restraints evaporating into thin air, as if they never were.
"I've lived a lie long enough to know better. There's nothing I want so badly that you could tempt me with it. No, I forgot what it meant to want anything for myself a while ago.
"I didn't ask for this war. I didn't ask for these burdens. I didn't ask for my friends, or for my family. I didn't ask to love, or to be loved, but I have these things anyway. And because I have these, there are things that I have to do. Responsibilities that I have to meet."
Her face was stoic, with more peace and focus than it had ever had.
"Right now, that's making sure no one else falls for your trap."
Out of the space where nothing existed, Chrysaor burst in a blur of white and gold, his shortswords borne like fangs.
"Well said, Athena!"
They pierced Caster's tanned hide like nails, but his form, as well as his puppet and all the furniture in the room, shifted like a mirage and disappeared from sight. Saber's push continued into the wall, which then fell like a cardboard prop onto a grassy lawn under the cover of night. All the other walls followed suit, leaving Master and Servant alone in a garden, and back in their normal clothes.
He turned to face her, "Are you alright?"
"Of course! Be ready!"
Caster's oily voice echoed from the dark skies overhead, "Hard way it is, then. It's time for me to show you just how insignificant you are! You can accomplish nothing without me, and yet you believe you can go against me? Witness the Truth you seek!"
Both Master and Servant rushed together, hoping to take one another's hands, to release his Noble Phantasm and pierce the veil of untruth with the sword of their united resolve, but, in the moment before their fingers touched, both pressed against hard glass. Both flinched back, but saw the deception and resolved to break it as they had before -they had already learned that lies have no power if you don't believe them- but, on each side, hands came swirling through as if from water. Saber cut them down as they emerged, but he hardly ebbed the tide, and Athena was forced to run on her heels, wrenching her hand back from where it had almost been grabbed. These hands seemed far too real, but whether they were some expression of truth or not, it hardly mattered. Even if they were total fabrications, they would wring her neck before she could assure herself of their falsehood, and, in believing herself dead, she would truly die in this world of lies.
This was the power of mortal fear, more persuasive than any honeyed words could've been.
"Chrysaor!"
"I can't break through! I'm sorry!"
She quickly searched her surroundings. They stood in a square lawn, decorated with flowers, trees, fountains and statues of cherubim and water-bearing women. The borders of the lawn were large hedges, but she saw an archway cutting into the hedge, leading to what could only be assumed to be a labyrinth. Looking back to her Servant, she saw a mirrored image of what was on her side of the barrier.
"Chrysaor! I'm going to run through the labyrinth! You do it, too! It's the only way out!"
He stopped his violence, and put a step of distance between himself and the corpses, which were now not merely hands, but also heads, shoulders, and the beginnings of torsos.
"Alright- if it's the only way. I'll see you on the other side, I promise! Stay safe! If I don't see you there, I'll find you! I swear!"
"Okay! I'll see you on the other side! I promise!"
"Good!" He paused, swallowed and took a breath, "Athena, I-"
"I love you, too!" She smiled to herself, breaking even with his flirt from before, "And if you die, I'll kill you! Got it!?"
A wide, electric grin broke across his face, as if he and she were about to start a children's race, rather than flee for their lives.
"Loud and clear! Now go!"
Each of them broke off in a run in unison, just as the zombies were getting their feet on the dark and wet soil. They pushed off towards the far hedges of their own side with such a force that they were sending clumps of dirt and false grass behind them, cutting rough tears into the pristine landscape Caster had created.
....