User:Actene

Fate/Mercy Drafts
Garrpe Rodriguez awoke before dawn, rising from the worn mattress and resting his bare feet against the cold, equally bare floor. There was no need for an alarm; he had been accustomed to such a wakeup time for many years now. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he crossed over to the cracked sink in the wall a few feet from his bed and splashed lukewarm water across his face. Squinting into the shards of what had once been a mirror, he ran a razor over the patches of stubble that dotted his rough features.

He stepped away from the sink. Reaching into a grubby duffel laying against the wall, he changed his shirt out for one that was almost equally dirty. Withdrawing a prayer book from the bag, he knelt on the cold floor. His knees, scabbed and exposed by holes in his pants, ached in protest, but he paid them no heed. There in the tiny room, he said a private mass in hushed, almost furtive tones.

“Et verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis,” he murmured, head bowed low in the darkness. “Kyrie eleison.”

A few feet away, something else stirred in the darkness. A huddled mass of dirt and fur lying near the door shifted and turned to look at him with baleful eyes. The grimy dog craned its neck and let out a small huff, as if irritated that its rest had been disturbed.

Garrpe smiled apologetically. “Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.” With this closing prayer, he crossed himself and returned the prayer book to the duffel. He unfolded a pair of socks and slid them over his feet, then donned a worn set of sneakers. Slipping on a hooded canvass jacket, he got up and stepped over the dog on his way to the door, slinging the duffel over his shoulder.

“Well, let’s be going then,” he said aloud. The dog yawned and slowly got to its feet. It rested its weight on three of its shaggy legs; the fourth hung limply from its body like a snapped branch on a tree. Its dark, cloudy eyes followed Garrpe as he opened the door and stepped out into the dimly lit corridor.

The woman at the inn’s counter, made irritable by her early morning shift, glowered at him as he approached. She jabbed a bony finger in the dog’s direction. “We don’t allow animals in the rooms. Didn’t they tell you that when you checked in?”

Garrpe gave her an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a crumpled handful of pound notes. “He needs a place to stay as much as I do. He didn’t leave a mess.”

“I just hope you don’t think you’re coming back here with him.” She rang up his charge as he handed her back his room key. The charge was several pounds more than the posted rate, but considering the presence of the dog Garrpe saw no grounds to argue. He fumbled with the money, counting out the notes. The charge left him with very little money to spare, but there was nothing to be done about that. He’d scrape something else together over the course of the day. He always managed, somehow.

Once she had the money in hand, the woman abruptly lost interest in both the resident and the rule-breaking dog. Garrpe turned and left the inn, stepping out into the dark London street outside. The dog lingered at the desk for a moment, then limped on out after him. It approached Garrpe and whined expectantly.

“Sorry,” he replied with the same apologetic tone he had used with the woman at the desk. “I don’t have anything with me. We’ll have to find somewhere else to eat.” His own stomach growled, the dog’s expectant gaze giving Garrpe hunger pangs of his own.

All of the shops up and down the street were closed and shuttered. It would be several hours before any of them opened, but knew of a few places nearby where he might be able to purchase a meal in exchange for his services. Garrpe flexed his fingers. Yes, he had ways of making himself useful.

His breast ached at the thought of putting his healing talents to work. The magical crest engraved on his chest tingled, and he massaged it with a grimace. It was a paltry little thing, his crest, laughable by the standards of most magi. He could not work much real magic with it, and what little he could do was a great strain on his body. Even magi with proper crests limited their magical output, focusing instead on cultivating and expanding their own power. For a failure of a mage like himself, with nothing more than a paltry handful of donated magic circuits…

But it is all I have to offer, he thought, staring out at the forlorn and empty street. ''Without it, I’m just some useless vagabond. A waste of space.''

As if sensing the young man’s consternation, the dog whined again. Garrpe tried to ignore his aching crest and reached out to comfort the dog, but froze when a shiver coursed down his spine. Off in the distance, something moved in the shadows.

Garrpe’s hands plunged into his jacket. They curled around several small objects stowed in his pockets: black keys, the concealed weapons of a Church Executor.

The shadow moved again. Garrpe’s fingers tightened around the black keys, even as he tried to quell the surge of fear coursing through his veins. The dog’s ears flattened against its head and it let out a low growl.

A cat slipped out of the shadows. Its head tilted towards the man and the dog, and then it darted away without a sound. The dog’s growl became a whine, but it remained by Garrpe’s side instead of pursuing after the cat.

I should kill it. The thought flashed through Garrpe's head in an instant. It could be some mage’s familiar. An Association agent, maybe, or a freelancer working for the Church.

The cat was still in sight. Garrpe’s skills might have dulled somewhat since he had left the Church, but he was still well-versed in the use of black keys. He could impale the cat in a single fluid motion before it had time to bound away any further.

But he did not move. In another instant the cat had vanished from his sight, melting back into the shadows of another alley. Garrpe glanced down at the dog, still growling at the spot where the cat had been.

“It’s nothing,” he said aloud, laughing quietly at his own fear and pride. This was how he lived, in constant fear of discovery by Association magi or the Executors, but in the end was there really anything to be afraid of? As if either of those towering organizations would waste time and resources hunting a weary tramp like himself. He flitted here and there in terror of shadows hounding his footsteps, but in the end he was little more than an ant, scurrying about the feet of giants with far loftier concerns than wandering failure like himself.

Still, for him to have come to a place like London…

Garrpe released the black keys and crouched beside the dog, running a hand through its coarse hair as he steadied his jolted nerves. With the Clocktower sitting in one direction and Westminster Cathedral in the other, this city was a hub for the shadowy world of these two great powers. The Magus Association and the Church, which dominated the world of magic and the supernatural hidden away from the eyes of most humans. A world he, too, had once had a place in.

But not anymore, he thought with a shake of his head.'' I've left all that behind. They will have forgotten about me, and I should forget about them as well.'' He no longer had any place in that world of power and ambition and intrigue. He had given it up and returned to the world of everyday concerns, of sickness and hunger and poverty, those worldly concerns that neither the magi nor the Executors had time or patience for.

Yes, he had left that all behind. His place was with the rabble, as so many magi called this plain, ordinary world. This was his path to walk.

''Yet I still cling to the vestiges of that other world. The magic circuits and black keys. Is it just my wounded pride that keeps me from letting go of those things?'' He shook his head. But without them, what did he have to offer? Without them, he really was just some powerless failure, unable to do anything but scrabble for the next meal, the next place to rest his head…

The dog whined and tugged against his arm, and Garrpe realized that he was squeezing tight against its neck. “Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, releasing his grip. The dog retreated a few paces away and glowered at him resentfully.

The cat really had given him quite a fright. Garrpe smiled ruefully and stood up again, emptying his mind of his doubts and misgivings. Nothing could be gained from such things. He should make up to his friend by finding them both something to eat, and then perhaps looking to attend to the business that had brought him to this city in the first place.

“Come on then,” he told the dog. “Let’s get going.” Adjusting the strap on his duffel, he drew up his hood to stand against the cold and began to trudge down the dark street. The dog stared after him for a moment, then drew itself up and hobbled after him, its maimed leg trailing behind it.

From the shadows of the alley the cat watched the man and dog depart, glaring sullenly at the irritating creatures that had given it such a fright.

---

"I'm heading out today, father."

Draped in the sterile white sheets of the hospital bed, the man gave no response. Several tubes protruded from beneath the sheets, winding up and ending in a bank of machines that sat in the corner and filled the room with their dull, metronomic beeping. All that could be seen of the man in the bed was his head, propped up on a bank of pillows. His torso, shriveled and degraded by disuse and the trauma it had endured, barely made an indentation under the sheets. His arms and legs did not produce so much as a shadow in the dim light.

"I'll be taking a huge risk," the young woman seated beside the bed continued. "It will be very dangerous. But I've made plans, and they won't be expecting me. Those inbred snobs from the Clocktower..." Her hands, their fingers splotched and stained with ink smudges, balled into fists against the folds of her dark blue dress.

Beside her, the man in the bed did not so much as bat one of his heavy-lidded eyes. He continued to gaze listlessly up at the featureless ceiling, expression utterly vacant.

"They won't see me coming. They've all been preparing so much to fight the war. They're all obsessed with what's going to happen, even all the ones who aren't even participating. They won't be expecting me, or what I have planned." She tilted her head up so that she could only see the man in the bed out of the corner of her eye and instead stared at the room's bare wall. "It's like you always said. They don't expect a mage like me to even think of doing something like this. But I will. This will turn everything on its head. And they'll pay for all those years of arrogance."

Joanna Regios looked down at the shrunken face of what had once been her father and did her best to stifle the feelings of disgust welling up in her breast. Every word coming out of her mouth meant absolutely nothing to the comatose body in front of her. The creature on the bed had not so much as stirred or uttered a single word for years. Each passing second of inactivity only served to remind her of what a complete and utter waste of time this visit was.

She tried to turn the bile rising in her throat to feelings of pity for the helpless old man in front of her, but all she felt was just a renewed wave of apathy. Even the disgust she felt was little more than the shadow of a reflex, an echo of sentiments she had set aside long ago. There was no room for such feeling in the world of magi, especially not in the arena she was about to slip into. The wasted husk in front of her was just another casualty in the endless struggle that defined the life of a mage. Her father had not been suited for that struggle. He had not taken it seriously. And in the end that attitude had cost him--and his family--everything.

The mages would pay for that, too.

"I'm all that's left," she repeated slowly. As meaningless as this visit was, still she continued to draw it out to its conclusion. As much as it repulsed her, the role of the dutiful daughter was nonetheless hers to play. Even if no one else were here to appreciate her performance, it was all part of the discipline that made a magus strong.

I wear many masks, she thought, an idea that had occurred to her many times before. A few days ago she had worn the mask of the industrious student, eager to make up for her family's past errors and content to stand forever in the shadow of those magi privileged to belong to distinguished, powerful families. Now she played out this farce of a meeting with her father. And soon she would wear another mask and step into the role of a scheming criminal intent on tearing down the rotten old traditions that had brought her family so much suffering and humiliation.

Or perhaps that last one was not a mask at all. Joanna could not help but hope this was true. She had played many roles during her life, and now she was preparing for the greatest of these performances. It was only be fitting that all of those previous deceptions should build up to this.

"The Servants have all been summoned," she went on. "The Clocktower has been sealed, and the Church has sent an delegation to the cathedral. The Holy Grail War has started. And now I'm going to start a war of my own. By the time it's over, it won't matter how old your family is or how powerful your bloodline can be. Everything will start over. And I'll be responsible for all of it."

On the bed, her father did not so much as bat an eye.

"I've sold the manor. And the town house. Your library, mother's jewelry. Everything." Her mouth twisted slightly. "No one noticed. They don't even have anyone watching our finances. That's how little they think of us now. It took everything the family had to pay for this. Not that any of the money would have made a difference the way things are now."