All Small Infinities

[old_man_acht]

When one has tried and failed to murder one's granddaughter's suitor, the least courtesy one can do her is to hear her side of the seduction. Therefore, when Acht sits across from Lara without preamble or introduction, it is not entirely strange that he opens with, "Tell me all that he said."

He does not think that she will play stupid and ask which person this he might be, but he is braced against the possibility.

Comments

[hikikomoe]

"What did you do to him?" Lara counters. She doesn't raise her voice past its usual volume. She does, however, cross her arms over her chest and look up at her grandfather under heavy eyebrows. Perhaps the effect is more childish than stubborn, but that is not for her to determine.

[old_man_acht]

"He is alive and in his church." It isn't the answer she demands--but she surely knows their conversations well enough, by now, to read the answer in it. Had I my way, he would be neither.

[hikikomoe]

She presses her back into the chair, hunches her shoulders. Curling in on herself is hardly an effective defensive mechanism in this situation, but it's an instinctive one. "It doesn't seem that he listens well."

[old_man_acht]

"He said that you'd told him to stay away. I commend you for the impulse, although your trust in his obedience was naive."

[hikikomoe]

"Apparently he possesses fewer instincts for self-preservation than I had thought."

fear --

No.

[old_man_acht]

"Heroes seldom do. In that sense, perhaps, I have made a hero of you." He folds his hands in his lap. "Tell me all that he said to you."

[hikikomoe]

She draws her arms closer to her chest. "He merely wished to inform me that he intends to use the Church as a refuge for anyone who wishes to escape or seek shelter. He says he has warded the building to prevent Servants from entering. I didn't test the veracity of that claim. The rest is not of strategic importance."

[old_man_acht]

"But it is of personal importance." This intelligence is useful. It suggests that Risei is unlikely to call in the Executors--if only because they are a blunt instrument, and the collateral damage they would inflict is likely to be considerable.

[hikikomoe]

Greater amounts of blood than usual are flowing to the back of her neck. She regulates that flow, as best she can. "He kept apologizing to me. We briefly discussed the genesis of the soul. He is very strange."

[old_man_acht]

"It would hurt you if he were to die." It isn't precisely a question. "Although you know that, without the Third Magic, your time on this earth is swiftly drawing to a close." Nor is that.

[hikikomoe]

"I know," she says, and chooses not to address that first statement.

[old_man_acht]

"You choose to spend your last hours in making connections, rather than in earning victory for the Einzbern family." He raises his brows. "Can it be that you anticipate the moment when you will have to extinguish your humanity like a candle flame? Can it be that, in your own way, you strive to preserve that humanity as long as you're able--if not in practice, then in his memory?"

[hikikomoe]

"I know why I was made," she says, somewhere between a mutter and a whisper. "I know what I must do."

It is not an answer. To truly give one to the questions Grandfather poses -- she bites her lip, and cannot help but wonder how the priest would respond, were such a question put to him.

[old_man_acht]

"Because you were made to do it? Or because you, too, have a stake in our success?"

[hikikomoe]

"I remember our first conversation on this matter." She is glaring at him again, her eyes bright. "You told me what you expect of me. I've done it. I have acted as Caster's Master and assisted him in gathering intelligence and built up our defenses around this castle. You've asked me to do everything in the name of the Einzbern family, and now you tell me I should have a stake in our success. What difference does it make if the end is the same?"

[old_man_acht]

"Before you met the priest, you had no stake in anything; then, it made no difference--and now, I see you planting one in him and in his success." He rises to his feet, as heavy as his hundred years. "You are a different person now. I no longer know you."

[hikikomoe]

She looks down; it relieves some of the stinging behind her eyes.

"I don't have a stake in him," she says, almost too quietly to be heard. "It's pointless for him to die. That's all."

[old_man_acht]

"And what will you do to prevent it?"

[hikikomoe]

She says nothing at first, and chooses instead to concentrate inward, regulate her respiratory system and bring some sense of calm to her other functions in the process.

It's proving difficult.

"If he will not listen -- "

[37thstrategem]

"Master!" Caster materializes in the doorway with a bowl of shaved ice and several pencil-thin sticks of biscuit, both covered in chocolate sauce. "Considering the progress of your recovery, I thought you might care for something sweet."

He makes a bit of a show of nodding to Acht. His interruption is timely for one Master and untimely for the other.

Such is the province of strategy.

[hikikomoe]

Lara is startled into silence, at least momentarily; when she recovers her capacity for speech, she elects not to continue her previous statement. It's for the best. "What are those?"

[37thstrategem]

He smiles. "When I asked the cook what sort of food you eat when you are ill-at-ease, they suggested chocolate. I'd never worked with it before, but I thought I might combine it with some snacks that I know from when I was growing up and that you might like them as well."

Let them keep talking about this instead. Let Lara, not Acht, gain control of the trajectory of battle.

[old_man_acht]

"So you've learned the value of sugar," observes Acht, folding his arms just as Lara had folded hers. "An admirable lesson, but difficult to turn against our enemies."

[37thstrategem]

"It doesn't belong in tea," Caster says. "But all things that grow have their virtues. Forgive me for the cruelty of sweetening her life before she gives it to your cause."

[old_man_acht]

"I forgive you," he says, face still as a frozen lake. "Time will tell whether she will."

[hikikomoe]

The actual temperature of the room may not have lowered, but the subjective temperature seems to have done so. Lara wraps her arms more tightly around her chest. "Caster," she says. "We should continue surveying the sites that you believe Lancer will choose for the battle."

[old_man_acht]

"Keep me informed." He does not say a farewell; he only uncrosses his arms and takes his leave.

He has accomplished all he expected to accomplish. To hope for more would be folly.