Backstage

[girlwiththegandrshot]

On the day Saber went the theater, Kirsikka Edelfelt wrote a letter in her head. Dear sister, she would write. Saber is exceptional. There are none alive, I am certain, who could measure against her. The men and women of this age are too small-minded and mean, but she! She is a creature of sheer strength and ambition. She will not stop until her legend is made immortal. She has inspired me, sister, as only legend can ...

Then Saber came home, bloody and happy and in need of healing.

Dear sister, she could have written instead. Saber is a fool.

This was not how Kirsikka expected her entrance in the war, and it was her entrance, for Saber's blade was her destiny -- was that not what she sang, at the summoning? It should not be drawn in vain. She argued with her Servant, insisted that from now on each battle should be strategic, and that Saber should be as close and obedient as a right hand, or else venture out under the watchful eye of a familiar.

But truth be told, Saber's specialization was melee combat. It must have been glorious to witness, Kirsikka thought to herself, for the second time. And she missed it.

Comments

[girlwiththegandrshot]

She tries to imagine what an Edelfelt would do -- but Edelfelts never flee. She tries to imagine what an actor would do, if this were a story on screen ... "Suppose there were someone for him to save, then? Someone to take to safety."

[chanson_de_maupin]

"That would do it, but I can hardly ask him to bring a hostage, and I can't expect him to trust anyone who appears in the vicinity--even a dockworker out for a stroll might easily be another Master, or a Master's stooge. And I won't bring you to the scene, not when any mage worth his salt knows who the Edelfelts are."

[girlwiththegandrshot]

"You can't mean to leave me!" She lifts her chin. "What, do you believe you're the only one who can act?"

[chanson_de_maupin]

"I believe we'll both be safer if they don't know how you can act. You can fire a pistol from your fingertips; all your family can, to hear you tell it, and anyone who knows the Edelfelt name will know that. Too much of a risk to tip our hands that early."

[girlwiththegandrshot]

"My sister and I were taught to take pride in our gifts. They're gifts unknown except in the world of magi, but it's our world, and we are its aristocrats," she says, like an airy recitation.

[chanson_de_maupin]

She throws up her hands. "I can't stop you if you want to be seen. All right, we'll make a part for you. Just scream in the right places, and try to look small and harmless, and we'll see if that sends Lancer running to your rescue."

[girlwiththegandrshot]

"Excellent," Kirsikka says. "I'll be irresistible." If this is like a story on screen, then that makes her the matinée idol -- never mind that she's never acted in her life. How difficult can it be?

[chanson_de_maupin]

She cocks her head at that cool self-confidence. "Let's hear you scream, then. You don't strike me as the kind of woman who's had much cause to scream, in her lifetime."

[girlwiththegandrshot]

"Ah," she intones, flat and featureless. "Oh, no. Please, save me."

[chanson_de_maupin]

She taps her foot. "With a scream like that, I wouldn't care enough to save you if I could actually see you burning to death."

[girlwiththegandrshot]

"Not what I'd hope to hear from my Servant," she bristles. "And what's wrong with my scream? The content is there! If it were an incantation, it would succeed as well as any other."

[chanson_de_maupin]

"The content is there, true enough, but humans don't work like magic. We feel things, feel them deep in the pit of ourselves where everything hurts and some of it hurts beautifully--we want to feel our heartstrings bowed like a cello's, wringing notes of anguish and rapture from us--"

Her voice has risen over the course of her tirade, and when it cuts off like a muffled bell, the reverberations ring through the empty room. Her eyes are wild, her cheeks flushed with feeling; she calms herself in a twinkling, though, and speaks into the echo. "And you can't play a man's feelings with anything but your own."

[girlwiththegandrshot]

Kirsikka'a protests die in her throat, as her cheeks flush to mirror Julie's, as her eyes grow wide and wondering -- but then she draws back and shakes her head.. "After all that talk about not tipping one's hand -- ! Now you talk of feelings."

[chanson_de_maupin]

"If you're going to tip your hand, you have to tip it in full and decide what you want people to see--if you're going to keep yourself reserved, then reserve yourself, damn it. You can't do both."

[girlwiththegandrshot]

"I can do as I like," she snaps, but that snapping proves more than it belies -- one more outburst of sincerity through put-on reserve.

It's Saber, she thinks. Saber takes you off-guard. Pretend she's like anyone else.

"I am what I am, an Edelfelt," she explains, "and an Edelfelt is in everything the soul of elegance and composure. But we are far from meek. We are fighters first, and if the battle must be fought through acting, I will act! I joined the War not so I could hide behind my Servant, but so that I could create a world where no mage shall ever have to hide! But you say --" She frowns."You say I must do it through with my own feelings? Isn't acting all pretense?"

[chanson_de_maupin]

"If it were all pretense, it would hardly be worth watching--or worth studying as a technical accomplishment, a thing well-made. Some do, I know, and they sit in their boxes waiting to be seen in their best gowns more than to hear an aria ... I won't deny that they exist, and that they lined our pockets. But when an actress rises to fame, when she breaks through their contempt and tears at their hearts, she does it because they recognize something real in her, even if she's never been a queen or murdered her lover or died mad and alone. She knows what grief is, and she knows what fear is, and those are real. That's how I built my fame, although I'm only a good singer, and not a great one--because when they saw me play a hero or a goddess, they could see me glorying in my triumph or crushed by my despair."

[girlwiththegandrshot]

"And what if I'm not afraid of anything?"

[chanson_de_maupin]

"Then you'll never sound like a woman who's really afraid, no matter how many times you shout 'Help.'"

[girlwiththegandrshot]

She tries to imagine herself afraid, tries to imagine losing the War, tries to imagine earning the ire of the Mage's Association for her plot -- all that lingers is a dream of sunlight, of dying after a wasting illness, of not being able to grasp her own husband's hand. And when she fixes on how it makes her feel, she doesn't like it.

"Then give me something else to shout," she says.

[chanson_de_maupin]

Saber paces the floor, studying Kirsikka from a new angle. "If you can't feel fear, I know that you can feel rage. Let's not make a helpless girl of you; let's make you my opponent as much as my Master. I'll want to fight Perseus, because I can't keep my eye on a fight long enough to win it, and you'll want me to finish Lancer while I have the chance. Don't shout 'Help.' Shout, 'No, finish him!'"

[girlwiththegandrshot]

Now she imagines losing the war. Now she imagines the Association taking her research and reducing her to helplessness, when she could have been a goddess. She draws herself up and points a wicked finger. "No, finish him!" Where her call for help was flat and toneless, her call to arms is loud and blaring -- too much? Perhaps. But it's something to work with.

[chanson_de_maupin]

"I'm not finishing him," says Saber, now circling her like a cat crowding a cornered animal. "I'm ignoring you--ignoring you! Kirsikka Edelfelt! How dare I ignore you!"

[girlwiththegandrshot]

"Why -- you daren't!" she returns, flustered, flushed. "You're my Servant! I sang for you and summoned you, drew you down from death to live again in this age, and you -- ! You swore your sword to me. You swore to fight beside me and claim the Grail in my name."

[chanson_de_maupin]

"Oh, but I dare--I dare, and Lancer is right there, standing aside because he's too damned noble to put his spear in my back while I've got an enemy engaged. He's right there, and I'm ignoring him, too!" Her sword is out--and suddenly, like a flame catching, there stands Perseus before her, his mirror-bright shield raised to deflect her blow; he raises the head of Medusa, turns it slowly to face her, as she shields her eyes against that snake-crowded visage.

To one side, by the hard-backed chair in which Julie had only minutes ago been sitting, a spear-carrier in a plumed helm stands mutely by.

[girlwiththegandrshot]

This is what it's like to see a hero in battle -- even if it's nothing more than shadow-boxing, Kirsikka thrills to see it. She laughs, delighted, and some part of her delighted by the ruse.

But she's meant to enraged, and that's easy enough. "Wretched thing," she says, of Lancer, turning to the spear-carrier. "I should strike him down myself!"