Explaining how it all works is a pain, so I'll pass. I can get mana from bodily fluids, especially those with a strong association with life. That means either drinking blood, which I refuse to do, or having sex. Is that something you're willing to do?
[She just gives him a stare. She can get to her legend in a bit, she just needs her point hammered home first.]
I could tie myself into the leylines of the area, but then I wouldn't be able to move from a certain point. And there's making a contract, which provides a direct path of magical energy, but there's only one person I would make a contract with, and that has already been refused.
[On one hand, her own legend is something shitty and also so personal she doesn't like sharing it, no matter how many times she's had to in this world.
On the other... The Holy Grail War concerns more than just her. It concerns Hakuno as well, and she can't just tell her secrets. And Hakuno's happiness is more important than her own.
She takes some of the wine in a long drink.]
Very well.
You aren't of my faith and wouldn't understand any of the religion from my time as a goddess, so I'll skip that. For now, all you need to understand is the goddess Amaterasu grew curious of how mortals could be so happy to serve her. So she divided off a facet of herself, nothing more than the desire to serve someone, and incarnated it as a human.
[He presses his palms down on the bench, leaning a little over the edge. He doesn't want Caster to talk about anything she might be uncomfortable with. He understands some things are better left unsaid. But as long as she wants to, he'll listen. He eyes the wine and decides to go for it, taking a sip.]
That's right! Incarnated as an adorable child, who grew into the most wise and intelligent beauty Japan has ever seen! ... But that is getting ahead of myself.
An elderly couple who has never been blessed with children of their own found this infant on the side of the road one day, you see. They took her in and gave her the name Mizukume. The child showed no signs of her origins, but absorbed knowledge like a sponge, with an intelligence far beyond a normal child's. Well, it was kind of cheating, as a facet of a goddess, but I didn't know what I was back then, either! I thought I was just a normal human, too.
[she goes quiet for a bit here. Her human parents... She doesn't want to talk about them, because she doesn't want them to become a part of her legend, to be tainted by her story.]
But when they were too old to care for a child anymore, I, as still a child, was sent to the Imperial court instead. Beauty and brains together even at that age? Of course I would be sent to become something great!
Well, I was something of a weird child, though. I was well-loved, but mostly I just followed the ladies-in-waiting around to learn from them. Pretty soon, I knew everything they did, and I moved on to the teachers, and then books. Learning everything in the world I could was fun, you know?
[It sounds more like a fairy tale than reality. He feels bad that her time with her human parents was so short, but it sounds like she lived a relatively safe life. Having some idea of how it ends just leaves him dreading it more.]
So you spent a lot of time reading? [It sounds kind of lonely to Jaune. But some people really enjoy that.]
I did, sometimes. Other times, I listened to the musicians, or eavesdropped on the priests and monks. And I became pretty popular as a result! A precocious child who knew almost everything, it seemed like. It became a game of sorts, for the ladies-in-waiting to quiz me on random subjects, and of course I answered flawlessly always!
And when I answered correctly, they were happy, so impressed with a child who knew so much. And I found I liked making people happy, as well, in multiple senses, if you catch my meaning. So I studied to become a courtesan, because with the wide variety of subjects and talents they needed, it would guarantee that I could make others around me happy in the same way. I thought that was all it took, the right answers to make people happy...
[She talks fondly, remembering fun times she had this way.]
[Okay, he needs a drink now. This isn't the person who murdered countless humans and told him not to trust others. This person sounds kind. And Caster isn't unkind, but she definitely strikes him as cynical and jaded.
People don't always do terrible things just out of nowhere. It's disconcerting to think about and he takes an even longer sip, putting the wine down more forcefully.]
[She's outright smiling fondly, a soft expression.]
When I was eighteen, I was brought to Emperor Toba's court. Well, he had retired, so the real emperor was his son, Konoe, but since Konoe was so young, Toba had the real power... Ah, but you don't need to care about the politics.
Emperor Toba had heard about me, you see. I'd already built up a reputation! He called for a poetry recital, and... Well, there was some incidents, but I impressed him. In fact, I wowed him so much that he gave me a new name, and made me his personal consort. No longer Mizukume, I had been named Tamamo-no-Mae, and was serving the Emperor himself. It was love at first sight for both of us, it seemed.
... I spent about a year that way. I was foolishly in love, and he loved me as well. There was always some political problems, of course, Toba always had a habit of doting too much on those he cared for, and giving little attention to those he didn't. But it didn't concern me, since I was part of the first group. As his consort, as a courtesan, I polished my skills and knowledge, until I was the center of it all... I especially liked our talks on philosophy. It was so much fun to turn everyone's expectations and preconceptions on their heads, you know?
[She takes a drink herself, steeling herself for the next part, but her voice doesn't waver.]
Then, one day, I woke up, and realized my head felt... heavier. I had grown these adorable fuzzy ears, and didn't understand it.
[She's right about the politics, but he thinks he understands loving someone. Being so attached to someone you can't imagine life without them. Too much has been left unsaid for him to label what he feels as love. But he still thinks he has some idea of how happy she was.
He feels a deep sinking feeling when she talks about the ears and buries his face in his palms.]
No, no. Rather... I hid them. I freaked out, you know? It was like being the heroine of a comic book, or something. I was all, "no way, do I really have fox ears growing out of my head?!" I hid them under a veil over my hair and my robes kept my tail from showing, and I hid myself in the corner of the court. I just said I wanted to read these scrolls, so I was mostly left alone... I got away with it for about a month.
... It was around the time I discovered my ears that Emperor Toba fell ill. So, since I became so withdrawn at the same time... Well, everyone assumed I was just upset that Toba wasn't around. And they weren't wrong, exactly, you know? At a moment like that, all anyone would want would be to be comforted by their love, right? But without him around, I hid it, telling no one.
[She laughs a little, hiding her nervousness with a smile. It's hard to talk about what happened next, but she owes it to Jaune after jerking him around so much.]
But a month passed like that, and Emperor Toba wasn't getting any better. So they called a diviner in, to determine the source of his illness.
[He moves his hands away, glancing over at Caster while she talks. He's never been good at hiding how he feels, and he almost looks hurt when she explains that she hid them. She was in a situation that possibly no one could understand, and she probably needed time to process is. But if Toba really loved her, wouldn't he try to help and be there for her?
But no happy endings begin with anyone falling ill. He looks like he's trying very hard to not look upset and worried, but is failing.]
What was the source? [Please don't say herself please don't say herself.]
[What she isn't saying is that she wouldn't have told him anyway. She was scared, absolutely terrified, waiting for the moment he condemned her as a demon.
But she doesn't dwell on that right now.]
The true source was that he was human. Humans are beings that fall ill. That is simply a fact of life.
... But it didn't matter. Because that man... Abe no Seimei, the diviner, appeared. He was gorgeous, but his soul as as black as the underworld... He was a half-fox himself, so he was able to easily expose my identity. He showed my ears to them all, and decried me as the source of the illness, that I was a fox demon... Man, what an uproar that was! I had to escape in a hurry after that.
[She laughs about it now, but at the time, she was terrified. Scared, confused, and alone, suddenly no longer human, waiting and afraid of being found out, and never being able to escape this nightmare... Her prayers were never answered. And then, she was exposed.]
I fled all the way to Nasu. There, all the foxes gathered around me, trying to be comforting... "You've come a long way", "what a rough journey you've had", things like that. I'm grateful for their feelings, but I wish they would have been a little more encouraging... You know, "you'll find a nicer guy soon", something like that? But it was then I remembered everything, and realized who I truly was.
[Her smile, and her cheerful facade, all of it slips for a moment.]
I am a fox, you know. Or... No, a fox is good enough, you don't need a primer on Buddhist symbolism.
[Honestly, that's a long and weird story.]
I was. A goddess wishing to serve people? Wishing to become human? It was a foolish notion. Humans don't want either of those things, after all. They desire a far-off idol, that they can push their wishes and blame upon...
[She shakes her head.]
But that is a digression. It was when I tried to rest at the plains of Nasu that the army caught up with me. Eighty thousand soldiers came at me, screaming, "Kill the fox demon!", brandishing all sorts of weapons. I tried to talk and apologize, but no one would listen, so I was all, "All right then, let's do this!", and... Well, I went a little overboard, and killed them all without letting even one escape.
[She grows a bit more melancholy, taking a sip of her wine.]
... I regretted it, of course, almost immediately. And so I stayed there, and when the second army showed up, I tried again to talk it out. I hadn't meant to fool anyone, so just forget about me and I'll leave, I told them... Well, it didn't much matter. It rained arrows for three straight days and nights there. All I could do was stand there.
That was when I realized the true depths of my foolishness... The humans I had admired and wished to be like were so different from what I had imagined. They were hateful, narrow-minded, self-righteous... But at the same time, so fragile and precious. I had been wrong from the beginning, after all. There is no way for a human to become a god... And the opposite is true, too. A god may never become human.
... And so, I obediently let myself be exterminated. At twenty years old, Tamamo-no-Mae was killed screaming, as Miuranosuke's enchanted arrow found my neck.
[Jaune may wish to take notice of that little fur choker she always wears around her neck.]
Well, after that, I was so confused and desperate to not leave the humans I so loved that I ended up haunting a boulder for a while, and the poison of my grudge killed anyone who came near, but that isn't really relevant. A monk named Gennou came by and saved my soul, allowing me to pass on, where the World and the Moon Cell removed my soul from transmigration and set it aside as a Divine Spirit... I intentionally reduced my power by cutting off eight of my tails to be a normal, human-like Heroic Spirit instead, though.
[She's more or less babbling now, just going on to try to lighten the mood from how her story- her life- ended.]
But you-- [How does he say this without being rude? Might as well be blunt.] You have human, or goddess features. So it's not weird to hear you talk.
[The silence on Jaune's end says more than any words could, and he deliberately turns his head so she can't see his face. He wasn't sure what he had imagined when she confessed to killing so many people.
He hadn't imagined a war against one single person because of a stupid misunderstanding. He hadn't imagined this.
Caster doesn't need to see the tears threatening to spill, though it's harder to hide the way he grits his teeth, trying not to acknowledge a deeper, more poisonous anger on her behalf and everyone else who's died who didn't deserve it. He scrubs the heels of his palms to his eyes and slumps, looking like he's doing everything just to hold it together. He still hears parts of her...afterlife? but some of it is like white noise, and he doesn't say anything until he feels like he can without breaking down.]
I'm sorry. For everything I said. [His voice is hoarse, soft, like he's been trying to keep the tears at bay.]
[Her expression softens, but she looks away from him as well.]
Thank you. Your kindness means much to me... But it doesn't matter. What I did isn't something that can be forgiven. And because of that, Abe's words are how I am remembered. My legend is that of a monster who betrayed one who loved her.
[She goes quiet for a moment, before sighing.]
We Heroic Spirits are shaped by the legends told of us, you know? It's not impossible for me to become the legend told about me.
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Explaining how it all works is a pain, so I'll pass. I can get mana from bodily fluids, especially those with a strong association with life. That means either drinking blood, which I refuse to do, or having sex. Is that something you're willing to do?
[She just gives him a stare. She can get to her legend in a bit, she just needs her point hammered home first.]
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[At least he's finally making eye contact now.]
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So I'll get by like this.
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[she says this so cheerfully.]
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[... She isn't sure which she'd prefer, honestly.]
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[He already told her he doesn't want or need an apology so it's up to her.]
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On the other... The Holy Grail War concerns more than just her. It concerns Hakuno as well, and she can't just tell her secrets. And Hakuno's happiness is more important than her own.
She takes some of the wine in a long drink.]
Very well.
You aren't of my faith and wouldn't understand any of the religion from my time as a goddess, so I'll skip that. For now, all you need to understand is the goddess Amaterasu grew curious of how mortals could be so happy to serve her. So she divided off a facet of herself, nothing more than the desire to serve someone, and incarnated it as a human.
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And that facet was you.
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An elderly couple who has never been blessed with children of their own found this infant on the side of the road one day, you see. They took her in and gave her the name Mizukume. The child showed no signs of her origins, but absorbed knowledge like a sponge, with an intelligence far beyond a normal child's. Well, it was kind of cheating, as a facet of a goddess, but I didn't know what I was back then, either! I thought I was just a normal human, too.
[she goes quiet for a bit here. Her human parents... She doesn't want to talk about them, because she doesn't want them to become a part of her legend, to be tainted by her story.]
But when they were too old to care for a child anymore, I, as still a child, was sent to the Imperial court instead. Beauty and brains together even at that age? Of course I would be sent to become something great!
Well, I was something of a weird child, though. I was well-loved, but mostly I just followed the ladies-in-waiting around to learn from them. Pretty soon, I knew everything they did, and I moved on to the teachers, and then books. Learning everything in the world I could was fun, you know?
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So you spent a lot of time reading? [It sounds kind of lonely to Jaune. But some people really enjoy that.]
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And when I answered correctly, they were happy, so impressed with a child who knew so much. And I found I liked making people happy, as well, in multiple senses, if you catch my meaning. So I studied to become a courtesan, because with the wide variety of subjects and talents they needed, it would guarantee that I could make others around me happy in the same way. I thought that was all it took, the right answers to make people happy...
[She talks fondly, remembering fun times she had this way.]
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People don't always do terrible things just out of nowhere. It's disconcerting to think about and he takes an even longer sip, putting the wine down more forcefully.]
That...that makes sense, I guess.
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When I was eighteen, I was brought to Emperor Toba's court. Well, he had retired, so the real emperor was his son, Konoe, but since Konoe was so young, Toba had the real power... Ah, but you don't need to care about the politics.
Emperor Toba had heard about me, you see. I'd already built up a reputation! He called for a poetry recital, and... Well, there was some incidents, but I impressed him. In fact, I wowed him so much that he gave me a new name, and made me his personal consort. No longer Mizukume, I had been named Tamamo-no-Mae, and was serving the Emperor himself. It was love at first sight for both of us, it seemed.
... I spent about a year that way. I was foolishly in love, and he loved me as well. There was always some political problems, of course, Toba always had a habit of doting too much on those he cared for, and giving little attention to those he didn't. But it didn't concern me, since I was part of the first group. As his consort, as a courtesan, I polished my skills and knowledge, until I was the center of it all... I especially liked our talks on philosophy. It was so much fun to turn everyone's expectations and preconceptions on their heads, you know?
[She takes a drink herself, steeling herself for the next part, but her voice doesn't waver.]
Then, one day, I woke up, and realized my head felt... heavier. I had grown these adorable fuzzy ears, and didn't understand it.
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He feels a deep sinking feeling when she talks about the ears and buries his face in his palms.]
What did you do? Were they mean about it?
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... It was around the time I discovered my ears that Emperor Toba fell ill. So, since I became so withdrawn at the same time... Well, everyone assumed I was just upset that Toba wasn't around. And they weren't wrong, exactly, you know? At a moment like that, all anyone would want would be to be comforted by their love, right? But without him around, I hid it, telling no one.
[She laughs a little, hiding her nervousness with a smile. It's hard to talk about what happened next, but she owes it to Jaune after jerking him around so much.]
But a month passed like that, and Emperor Toba wasn't getting any better. So they called a diviner in, to determine the source of his illness.
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But no happy endings begin with anyone falling ill. He looks like he's trying very hard to not look upset and worried, but is failing.]
What was the source? [Please don't say herself please don't say herself.]
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But she doesn't dwell on that right now.]
The true source was that he was human. Humans are beings that fall ill. That is simply a fact of life.
... But it didn't matter. Because that man... Abe no Seimei, the diviner, appeared. He was gorgeous, but his soul as as black as the underworld... He was a half-fox himself, so he was able to easily expose my identity. He showed my ears to them all, and decried me as the source of the illness, that I was a fox demon... Man, what an uproar that was! I had to escape in a hurry after that.
[She laughs about it now, but at the time, she was terrified. Scared, confused, and alone, suddenly no longer human, waiting and afraid of being found out, and never being able to escape this nightmare... Her prayers were never answered. And then, she was exposed.]
I fled all the way to Nasu. There, all the foxes gathered around me, trying to be comforting... "You've come a long way", "what a rough journey you've had", things like that. I'm grateful for their feelings, but I wish they would have been a little more encouraging... You know, "you'll find a nicer guy soon", something like that? But it was then I remembered everything, and realized who I truly was.
[Her smile, and her cheerful facade, all of it slips for a moment.]
... Truly, I was such a fool.
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Don't say that. [His reply is almost instant.] You weren't a fool. It's not your fault they-- You couldn't have known they would turn on you.
You weren't a fool. They were.
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[Honestly, that's a long and weird story.]
I was. A goddess wishing to serve people? Wishing to become human? It was a foolish notion. Humans don't want either of those things, after all. They desire a far-off idol, that they can push their wishes and blame upon...
[She shakes her head.]
But that is a digression. It was when I tried to rest at the plains of Nasu that the army caught up with me. Eighty thousand soldiers came at me, screaming, "Kill the fox demon!", brandishing all sorts of weapons. I tried to talk and apologize, but no one would listen, so I was all, "All right then, let's do this!", and... Well, I went a little overboard, and killed them all without letting even one escape.
[She grows a bit more melancholy, taking a sip of her wine.]
... I regretted it, of course, almost immediately. And so I stayed there, and when the second army showed up, I tried again to talk it out. I hadn't meant to fool anyone, so just forget about me and I'll leave, I told them... Well, it didn't much matter. It rained arrows for three straight days and nights there. All I could do was stand there.
That was when I realized the true depths of my foolishness... The humans I had admired and wished to be like were so different from what I had imagined. They were hateful, narrow-minded, self-righteous... But at the same time, so fragile and precious. I had been wrong from the beginning, after all. There is no way for a human to become a god... And the opposite is true, too. A god may never become human.
... And so, I obediently let myself be exterminated. At twenty years old, Tamamo-no-Mae was killed screaming, as Miuranosuke's enchanted arrow found my neck.
[Jaune may wish to take notice of that little fur choker she always wears around her neck.]
Well, after that, I was so confused and desperate to not leave the humans I so loved that I ended up haunting a boulder for a while, and the poison of my grudge killed anyone who came near, but that isn't really relevant. A monk named Gennou came by and saved my soul, allowing me to pass on, where the World and the Moon Cell removed my soul from transmigration and set it aside as a Divine Spirit... I intentionally reduced my power by cutting off eight of my tails to be a normal, human-like Heroic Spirit instead, though.
[She's more or less babbling now, just going on to try to lighten the mood from how her story- her life- ended.]
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[The silence on Jaune's end says more than any words could, and he deliberately turns his head so she can't see his face. He wasn't sure what he had imagined when she confessed to killing so many people.
He hadn't imagined a war against one single person because of a stupid misunderstanding. He hadn't imagined this.
Caster doesn't need to see the tears threatening to spill, though it's harder to hide the way he grits his teeth, trying not to acknowledge a deeper, more poisonous anger on her behalf and everyone else who's died who didn't deserve it. He scrubs the heels of his palms to his eyes and slumps, looking like he's doing everything just to hold it together. He still hears parts of her...afterlife? but some of it is like white noise, and he doesn't say anything until he feels like he can without breaking down.]
I'm sorry. For everything I said. [His voice is hoarse, soft, like he's been trying to keep the tears at bay.]
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Thank you. Your kindness means much to me... But it doesn't matter. What I did isn't something that can be forgiven. And because of that, Abe's words are how I am remembered. My legend is that of a monster who betrayed one who loved her.
[She goes quiet for a moment, before sighing.]
We Heroic Spirits are shaped by the legends told of us, you know? It's not impossible for me to become the legend told about me.
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