Fate/Reverse part 2.30 – Enemy Territory

“The Fae Gate? But that was only supposed to take you! And this isn’t the right time period. Did it even work? Oh God, why do I keep messing everything up…”

Aimon watched the girl flit from one problem to the next, clutching at her own hands without pausing to actually deduce the answer to any of her questions. He hadn’t realized the heir to one of those severe, rational mage families could be so excitable.

“I don’t know,” Aimon said simply, “But if you calm down, perhaps you can assist me in figuring it out. You know more about magecraft than I do.”

“That… makes sense.” The girl stopped fidgeting, mostly, though she still shivered in her thin cotton dress. Pale mist curled around her shoulders, dark and bare, and she shied away from it. “This stuff isn’t dangerous, is it?”

Aimon shrugged. The mist was dense, but it didn’t look abnormal. “It hasn’t killed me yet.”

“Oh, that’s reassuring. Besides, you’re wearing Alter’s mask.”

“She didn’t say anything about filtering properties. Just that it would absorb and store my magical signature. Assuming I have such a thing.” Aimon pulled the horned helmet off and took a deep breath. The air smelled moist and full of living things, but with a tinge of acrid chemicals from the city behind them. A wet mixture of two worlds

Then he felt a sudden burst of energy fizzing through his veins, like he had redirected some of his mana but to his whole body rather than a limb. Alter had told him about that too, a brief boost from the energy the mask collected. Revitalized, he glanced around without the helmet blocking his vision.

The cityscape and forest were both totally still, not a crackle of undergrowth or a scuff of footsteps to be heard. No horns in the distance, no gleam of steel or magic among the trees.

“It seems safe here. No movement, and the mist is nothing more than normal vapor.”

Magdalena seemed to relax a bit, hearing that. She still looked cold, but the temperature wasn’t low enough to be dangerous to a person of her age. “I guess we’re safe for now, then. But how long will that last?”

“Ideally until we find the catalyst. But don’t worry.” Aimon patted the hilt of his sword. “Between your magecraft and my blade, we are well-defended. And if an enemy Servant comes along, we’d be dead either way. No sense worrying.”

The girl stared at him like he was crazy. “How can you say that? Of course we should worry, we’re stranded god-knows-where, god-knows-when, we could be attacked at any time, and…”

Deciding to let the girl wear herself out on her own time, Aimon knelt by the edge of the city and felt the leaf litter there. It seemed perfectly normal, the product of a healthy forest. Individual leaves were cut off along the harsh line of the asphalt but sticking a branch into the earth revealed a rich, dark topsoil. Normal again.

He slipped out the pouch Alter had tucked into his armor and broke the vial within between too fingers. The black blood soaked into the leather and the seed within it, preparing the spell as Alter had explained. Then he plunged the pouch into the earth to let the seedling grow.

“… the catalyst even looks like!” Magdalena was saying. “What if it’s not even here? What if Ruler caught on and destroyed it or something? What if we make a mistake and just die here—”

“Magdalena.” Aimon waited for the girl to finish flinching at her name, then said, “Remember, we are not without a plan. Supposedly we will feel the catalyst’s magic when we get close. And, Alter gave me a seedling that will grow a way home.” He pointed at the patch of earth, where a green shoot was already uncoiling up towards the grey sky.

“In the meantime,” he continued, “we might as well look for this catalyst. The gate might have sent us awry, but it might have not.”

The young mage’s nod was still hesitant, but she at least relaxed her shoulders and moved from the spot she had been standing the whole time. “That’s true…” She followed a little behind him as Aimon pushed deeper into the forest. “I hope I didn’t mess up the portal. I think I melded too deeply, and the magic sucked me in. If that’s the case, we could be anywhere.”

When she fell silent, Aimon heard something, the distant chatter of rushing water. That must be a river, a moving river. At the very least, it could serve as a landmark or orient their search. He slashed through a clump of briars and cut towards the noise.

“But this place is so strange,” Magdalena started talking again. Aimon wasn’t sure if he was supposed to respond, so he just focused on clearing their path. “Is it really Ruler’s domain, or some in-between faerie world?”

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Aimon’s mental search for a new way to say he didn’t know was interrupted when the undergrowth abruptly ended in front of him. They pushed between the trees into open farmland. A jagged strip of wheat cut through the forest in front of them. Half a plow sat at one end, still hooked to a horse that appeared to be frozen in place.

There was a farmer too, a tired looking man in rough cloth holding the animal’s bridle. He had a frustrated expression, but his eyes stared out into the forest, unfocused. His body remained completely still, even when Magdalena called out to him.

Striding up to the man, Aimon waved an armored hand in front of his eyes. There was no response.

“This isn’t right,” Magdalena muttered. “What’s wrong with this place? It’s like everything is caught in time.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple,” Aimon said. “This is no normal farmer. That city should have gone on for another half-mile, not to mention the suburbs around it. And this wood is no tidily kept park, either.”

“And this plow…” Circling around him, the mage knelt by the farming implement, running a finger down the black metal. “This is iron. Even if it’s some sort of re-enactment, wouldn’t any modern person use steel?”

The plow and harness did look antiquated, as far as Aimon could tell. And like the leaves and the street, it was cut off where the farmland turned back into forest. The cleanness reminded him of a sliced tatami mat or maybe a diced vegetable.

Behind him, Magdalena gasped.

Aimon whirled about, hand on his sword. Edging closer to him, the made raised a shaking finger.

There at the edge of the woods, a furry mass hunched under some tall ferns. It was huge, bigger than a lion but with stockier legs and a stunted tail. Two huge fangs curved down from its mouth like sabers. Mist curled off of them, bleeding into the leaves nearby.

Aimon sheathed his sword. “Strange, certainly. But it’s frozen like everything else.”

“That—” Magdalena still seemed to be catching her breath. “That animal should be extinct! Where in time did they even send us?”

“It seems like a patchwork,” Aimon mused. “A modern city, a medieval farm, and this Ice Age forest.”

“The early Neolithic, huh?” The young mage hugged herself, rubbing her arms as she backed away from the unmoving predator. “I guess that explains why it’s so cold in this forest.”

Slowly Aimon realized this was one of those moments Marissa had explained to him, when it would be nice to lend the person his jacket. Then he remembered that he didn’t have a jacket, and more memories kept flooding back. How he had tried to lend one to Marissa and she had laughed and called him sweet, even though she had one already. He remembered that she must have been wearing one under that armor, out on that cold battlefield…

He remembered too much and shoved his way into the forest. The river. He would focus on finding the river, and then the catalyst. One thing at a time.

“Wait for me!” Magdalena shouted. Her little white slippers made unsteady crunching sounds as she tried to catch up to him in the forest. But Aimon didn’t want to slow down for her. Even when the roar of the river announced its presence mere feet away he didn’t want to slow down. Dimly, he realized he was running from something.

Aimon made himself stop.

With a soft grunt, Magdalena bumped into him. Aimon didn’t move. He was staring at the water flowing before him. It was narrow here, a white-capped tributary, but the placid blue that it emptied into stretched before him with an aching familiarity.

It was the glassy, calm surface, tucked between steep hills. “I know this place,” he said. There was a brown castle across draped across the peak on the far side of the river. Even wreathed in mist, Aimon could recognize it.

“This is the Danube River, where my uncle took me to train. After my eyes awakened. A land of old magic, bathed in history, he would say.”

“So we are in the right place?” Magdalena said, still a bit out of breath.

Aimon nodded. “An out of the way wood in Germany.”

“Then- Then it worked! We can still find the catalyst!” The girl pumped her fists and gave a little hop of joy. Or at least Aimon thought so. It was hard to tell with mages.

As he watched, Magdalena blushed and smoothed her dress in discomfort. “Ah, sorry. We should probably keep moving.”

“Agreed.” He thought it might be a good time to smile, to comfort her. But when he tried, she only gave him a strange look and edged a bit farther away. He sighed. Without Marissa to guide him, what was the point?

Aimon turned to plod downstream, setting his helmet back on his head so he wouldn’t have to carry it anymore. The metal, or wood, or whatever Alter had used was surprisingly easy to see and hear through. The river whispered on his left and the bushes along its bank rustled gently.

He paused.

So far, nothing but the water in the air and river had moved. But something was making a noise, some tall and slender shape in the shadow of a fir tree’s dense branches.

Slowly Aimon changed course to draw close to it, trying to bring his hand to his hilt in a natural motion. If it was a Servant, he would only get one chance.

Then Magdalena’s voice popped up, bright and hopeful. “I can feel a mana response, I think! Is that the catalyst?”

The shape moved forward, resolving into a thin but muscled limb poking out of loose deerskin clothing. Uncertainty lurched in Aimon’s stomach but he pushed himself through it. This time, he wouldn’t be too late.

His longsword had a straight edge, but he managed to turn his draw into a sudden slash, aimed at where the limb would connect to the body. Two gasps registered in the back of his mind as the shadow darted back. He had missed.

Instantly he pivoted the hilt between his hands to ready another angle of attack, only to hear a young woman’s voice cry out from within the branches: “Wait, please! I mean no harm.”

The earnestness in her voice got through to Aimon and his polished technique hiccupped. The second slash only sliced through a needled branch. He stepped back in case of a reprisal.

But the young woman only held up her hands, palms empty, as she pressed back into the fir tree. A knife hung from her deerskin belt, along with several pouches, but she made no move to attack.

Instead, she stared Aimon down with wide but steady eyes, dark like forest pools. Her two black braids trembled where they ended by her waist.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she repeated. “I just want to help you find this catalyst you’re looking for.”