Interlude A I: A Genius of Hard Work
She was born with nothing.
She was given nothing.
She inherited nothing.
Rather, if there was one thing she could be said to have received at birth, it was simple beauty, the most terrible blessing of all.
She did not inherit the burden of divinity, for her parents were ordinary humans.
She did not receive great wisdom, for she was an ordinary woman.
She was not born with overflowing talent, for she was an ordinary person.
Truly, there was nothing extraordinary about her, except for her radiant appearance, and so her parents gave her the only gift she had ever received: the name "Aífe," which meant "beautiful."
To her sister went all the things she lacked. Overflowing talent, great wisdom, and a body well-suited for combat — these were the things which Scáthach received, the gifts that allowed her to become so fearsome and so powerful a warrior that even the gods might tremble to hear her name.
Even her name itself was fierce. "Scáthach." "The Shadowy One." A specter whose likeness haunted the dreams of men and monsters alike, who took her skill with a spear to such extremes that even the divine could be slain the same as a simple beast. She who was whispered about with fear, whose mere frown could send souls shivering with terror. She who entered the realm of gods with an ordinary human body.
She was everything Aífe wanted to be.
In a different life, perhaps beauty would have been enough. For an ordinary princess or a queen, there were plenty of men who would find a pretty face pleasing enough to take her as a bride, to sire children with her, and to give her a life of comfort and luxury as they ruled their kingdom side by side. Her name would never be known for great feats, and she herself would never win lasting glory, and songs would never be written of her bravery and strength and skill, but it would not be such a bad life, would it?
No, it would not. Even if her body was weak and ordinary, her tongue was sharp and her will was strong, and the men of Éire found that just as pleasing as great beauty. She could be a queen without being a figurehead, a mother without being a king's broodmare, a woman of storied history without being a warrior.
If she allowed her father to dote on her and her future to be decided by others, then such a life would not be so bad. Comfort. Luxury. The easy life, where her one gift became the only strength she needed to secure her place in Éire and in history.
The very thought of it made her sick.
Comfort and luxury? Passivity and obscurity? A life lived in the shadow of others, with her only accolades being the siring of others who might strike their own legends into the annals of history?
How worthless. How pointless. How insulting.
That was not the life that Aífe wanted for herself. That was not the life she imagined in her future. That was not at all the sort of life she was willing to accept.
Combat. Victory. Glory. Her name on the lips of others, her deeds recited around campfires, her own greatness acknowledged across the entirety of Éire — those were the things she wanted, a future where it was her own strength and her own prowess and her own accomplishments that engraved her name into history.
She refused to live in anyone's shadow, least of all her beloved sister's.
And so as soon as she could fit her fingers around the hilt, she picked up a sword and challenged her radiant sister to pitched combat.
"A fine effort."
A hand on her head, mussing her hair. An indulgent smile. Warm eyes looking down at her with affection.
"Perhaps one day, you will be able to defeat me."
Failure.
In an instant, she had been defeated. No, worse than that, it was over before it had even begun. She had been defeated before she even picked up the sword in the first place.
It was only to be expected. Scáthach was a shining star, filled to the brim with overflowing talent. She had raced ahead of Aífe, absorbing knowledge and skill in the martial and mystic arts as a simple matter of course. She was simply too brilliant, and that brilliance would not be diminished by a half-hearted effort or the hasty, sloppy stroke of a novice swordswoman. Aífe's defeat there was a foregone conclusion.
"One day, Scáthach," Aífe promised then and there, "I will surpass you! And it will be you who stands in my shadow!"
An indulgent smile. A quiet laugh. "Of course."
Aífe did not receive great wisdom. She had not inherited overflowing talent. She was an ordinary woman.
But even an ordinary woman can possess determination.
It would not be enough to simply match her sister. No, for Scáthach had received all of the things Aífe lacked. To surpass her sister, Aífe would need to put double, no, triple the effort. As Scáthach breezed through her lessons, Aífe would have to toil three times as hard, push herself thrice as far, and sweat three times as much, just to stay even. Just to keep up, just to not be left behind, she would have to do at least that much.
Aífe picked up her sword and began learning.
When her muscles burned from the effort, she pushed forward and kept going. When her lungs screamed for air, she gulped it down and kept going. When her body was drenched in sweat, she wiped it away from her brow and kept going.
Every hour of every day was spent training, learning, preparing. She honed her mind and body, memorizing techniques and spells in equal measure, refusing to let herself fall behind, no matter what it cost her. She would become a warrior that even her sister would tremble in fear of.
Three years after that first duel, Aífe thought she might be ready, and so she challenged her sister a second time.
"A fine effort this time, as well."
A hand on her head, mussing her hair. An indulgent smile. Warm eyes looked down on her with affection.
"You've improved. Perhaps one day, you might defeat me."
Failure.
Again. For the second time, she had failed to defeat her sister. Scáthach remained the superior warrior.
It burned in her gut like fire.
It had not been instantaneous, not like before, but it had still been decided before the fight even began. Scáthach's victory remained a foregone conclusion. There was no way Aífe would have won.
"One day," Aífe promised again, "you will stand in my shadow."
That familiar indulgent smile. "Of course."
Again, Aífe redoubled her efforts. It was not enough to put in merely three times the effort. No, she needed to be even better than that, even more hardworking than that. If it was her limits that were holding her back, then she would just have to surpass those, and shatter the bonds that held her back.
She pushed herself there, to the limits. She pushed beyond them. She continued to hone herself, body and mind, sweating until she bled, bleeding until she was sweating blood. Her mortal, human body tried to hold her back, to tell her that she had reached what was supposed to be possible and she could go no further.
She refused to listen to it.
As she grew, her body grew harder. As she grew, her skills grew fiercer. As she grew, her limits grew with her.
If she had chosen the life of a pampered queen, she would have been soft and womanly. Her body would have become the body of a fertility goddess, rounded and curved, supple and voluptuous.
But she had chosen the life of a warrior. Her body grew lean, thin, packed with tight muscle. Her chest grew only half as large as it could have. Her stomach became lined with rippling power. Her arms and legs firmed with unrivaled strength. Every part of her was devoted to exceeding the limits of what should have been possible for a human woman to accomplish.
The only part of her which remained soft and feminine was her face.
Many more times, Aífe challenged her sister to pitched combat. Many times, Scáthach bested her, and Aífe fed the flaming frustration of her defeat to the fires of her determination. She used it as kindling for the blazing furnace of her resolve, and she used that resolve to push herself ever further past her previous limits.
And every time, the gap closed further. The duels lasted longer. No longer childish girls inexperienced in combat, they were young women dancing along the path of feats, and their battles were drawn out affairs lasting whole days at a time. There were many moments where the fight was almost decided, only to be prolonged as the opportunity was missed or closed.
Even if Scáthach was still the winner each time, the conclusion was no longer foregone.
Eventually, the day came. The duel ended. The blade of a red spear rested against Aífe's neck. The tip of a silvery blade prodded Scáthach's throat.
There was no longer an indulgent smile. No hand rested on Aífe's head. Those eyes, usually filled with warmth, were wide with surprise.
"A draw."
"No," said Aífe. "This is your victory."
It burned. But it was the truth, as Aífe knew it. Her sister continued to grow and advance, getting stronger, more skilled, more powerful. Smarter, brighter, shining ever more brilliantly with every day.
"I've reached the limit of how far I can go here," Aífe admitted. "And even so, I'm still in your shadow."
"Have you?" Scáthach asked. "I don't see it."
There are some things that you are simply too brilliant to perceive, thought Aífe.
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And so she decided: "I'm going to leave and find other fights, challenge myself against other warriors. When I come back, I'll have surpassed you, sister. Mine is the shadow you will stand in."
"I eagerly await the day," said Scáthach, "for I, too, have reached the limits of what I might learn in this place. One day, we will meet again, and you will show to me the fruits of what you have learned."
On the fateful day, the sisters went their separate ways. Scáthach traveled to the west, through the lands of Ulster and across the isle of Éire, carving a bloody path through any and all who might challenge her, and Aífe traveled to the east, across the sea, first into heartland of Alba, then onto the continent, where the vast forest of Gaul awaited. She met every challenge as readily and eagerly as her sister and continued to expand her knowledge and strength.
Many years passed. They were filled with new experiences and new warriors against whom Aífe could pit her skills, but inevitably, Aífe outgrew them. She knew then the tedium of her sister's burden, to be faced with opponents so far below her own level that they were as flailing children, and she thought to herself, Ah, so this is what Scáthach must have experienced all those years ago when first I challenged her.
Men fell before her like wheat before the scythe. Those who refused to back down had their lives cut short. Those who surrendered, she showed the mercy of the victorious, and allowed them to walk away with the painful lessons of their defeat. No matter who came before her, they were all as the same, and they were all equally disappointing.
Through countless hours of hard work and dedication, she had reached the pinnacle of human martial prowess. Her muscles were like iron, her will like steel, her skills as radiant as the summer sun. In all of Gaul, she had become unrivaled.
Still, she was unsatisfied, for her sister had surely come farther than this. Scáthach must have been growing still, facing stiffer competition, staring down enemies that would give even the bravest of heroes pause, and yet for Aífe, nothing remained. There was nothing left to challenge her.
Nothing mortal, at least.
It was a thought equal parts mad and thrilling. What fool would arm herself and seek out the divine solely for the purpose of attempting to slay it? What ignorant child would think herself strong enough, her skills polished enough, her body resilient enough to face down a god and have any hope of victory?
Scáthach would. She would not even hesitate. So Aífe must not either.
And so she did not. She set her mind to the act of deicide —
— and woke up with a start, blinking away the sleep from her eyes as she realized that she had fallen asleep in the first place.
"I fell asleep?" she mumbled to the open air as she rubbed at one cheek.
Yes, she had. Night had long since fallen, the moon hanging far above her head, and while no city ever truly turned all the way off at night, most of Rome had tucked themselves into bed so that they might rise early the next day to start the cycle all over again.
Aífe clicked her tongue.
"I must be getting soft," she scolded herself, "if I let myself relax that much after a simple bath."
How careless. She'd let her guard down enough to fall asleep. If the enemy had an Assassin that had been so inclined to make an attempt on the lives of the Emperor or any of Chaldea's Masters, then the assailant could have slipped right by her without her being any the wiser.
With a grunt, Aífe levered herself up and to her feet on the little section of roof she'd chosen as her post. She cast her gaze out across the city; her vantage point was not the greatest and she was no Archer, so she couldn't see out to its edges, but the location of the emperor's manor and the size of it gave her enough to see anyone coming long before they could reach her.
But no threat materialized, least of all Caligula, who Aífe yearned for the chance to match fists against, if only to see if he was as credible a threat as he seemed.
A glance over to the top of the roof revealed Arash, casting his own eagle-eyed gaze across the city. There was no way he hadn't seen her nod off, and yet he'd continued to do his duty without pause. Worse, he'd let her sleep, like she was a child in need of coddling who had stayed up far past her bedtime.
Even kindness can be an insult, no matter your intentions, she thought at him, and she knew immediately that it wasn't fair. He was from a different era, a different culture, and for all that she could respect his deeds and his legend, he was a different kind of hero than her.
He was a hero who ended conflict. She was a hero who thrived in it.
"I won't be far," she told him instead, "but I'm going to break off on my own for a little while."
Arash glanced at her, but he offered no rebuke or criticism, and nothing of his thoughts showed on his face. "I'll cover for you," he promised with the utmost sincerity.
Right then, it made her want to smash his face in.
She turned away so he couldn't see her lip curl, and Gáe Bolg leapt into her hand as she dropped off of the roof and landed with a quiet thump on the ground below.
She needed to work off some steam.
The emperor's house had private baths, but it also featured other things that the Romans liked to attach to their bathhouses, so Aífe made a beeline for the courtyard meant for exercise. It had nothing, of course, on the courtyard of a proper castle, and it was downright claustrophobic compared with the facilities where she had trained her own students once upon a time, but for her purposes, it should be enough, as long as she was careful not to be too careless with her strength.
The last thing she needed to do was bring the house down around her Masters' heads with a poorly-placed Torannchless.
Gáe Bolg was left alone at the entrance, balanced straight up on its pommel, and she strode into the center of the courtyard, closed her eyes, and took a deep, preparatory breath. When she opened her eyes again, the ghostly figure of her sister stood across from her, fists raised in preparation for combat.
Would that the specter was real instead of a figment of her imagination. Tiberius may in fact wind up being the greatest threat she faced in this Singularity, and she would have relished a challenge, just then.
But she was not. Scáthach still remained behind in the Land of Shadows, warden of its gates, still carrying the burden for which Aífe had been passed over. She would not be making any miraculous appearances here.
Another deep breath. Aífe sank into her own stance, fists raised, and then she and her imaginary opponent raced towards one another to meet in the middle.
Time passed in the way it was wont to, as a blur. Aífe had no idea how long she danced around that courtyard, alone but for the immaterial specter she had been chasing for most of her life, punching and kicking and fighting nothing but the air itself. She lost herself to the feeling of pushing herself again, of throwing herself into combat, imagined or not, and of squaring off against an opponent she couldn't simply lay out with a single, well-placed punch.
The true tragedy was that a Servant's body wasn't alive, and so couldn't experience the strain of a good workout the same way. The burn that accompanied her fists and her feet was of energy spent, magical power expended, not her flesh and blood muscles being put through their paces. Even if she were to be fighting an opponent that pushed her limits, it was her body, her Saint Graph, that would break long before her limits did.
Eventually, however, she'd worked out enough of her aggression that she didn't feel like unleashing it on another person, and she went through a cooldown to ease herself out of that combative mindset. When even that was done, she wiped away the sweat that had gathered on her brow, and she was even tempted to smile, if only a little.
"So, this is where you went off to."
Instantly, her guard was raised, and Gáe Bolg leapt to her hand as she turned to face the intruder, ready to fight.
Emiya held up his hands in the universal sign of surrender.
"Oh." She allowed herself to relax with a breath. "It's just you, Emiya."
"I noticed you left your post and came to make sure everything was okay." He lowered his hands. "Only to discover you playfighting with the air."
Playfighting? She snorted. "I came here to blow off some steam. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
"Who were you imagining on the other end of your fist?" He smirked. "The Hound, maybe? Not that I can blame you. He has a very punchable face, doesn't he?"
"And a very long, hard spear," she retorted, watching his face twist into a grimace. "But you would know all about that, too, wouldn't you?"
"You and I are talking about very different spears, I think," he said, feigning ignorance, "and I'm pretty sure the one you're more familiar with is more flesh and blood than the one he used on me."
Her eyes narrowed on him. "You're bold. If that was near as much a wound as you believed it to be, I could very well have lashed out against you."
If he was expecting it to be open and bleeding still, then he would be sorely disappointed. Aífe the woman had died old, when her body gave out, long enough after that wound for the sting of it to lessen, not almost immediately after it, as Boudica had. She had had more than enough time to come to terms with the events of her life, even if those years felt to the current her like a fever dream.
He shrugged.
"It wouldn't be the first time my tongue has gotten me into trouble," he admitted casually.
So, they were going to play that game, were they?
"Was your infatuation with the King of Knights truly that terrible of a secret?" she said. "I would have thought you above such petty revenge."
Steely eyes flashed.
"I would have thought the same about you," he shot back, "but then, your worthless pride almost got you killed against both Caesar and Tiberius, so I guess we're all overestimating each other these days."
"You yourself have emphasized multiple times how far removed the land and the culture I grew up in is from our Masters and presumably your own," she retorted. "You have no room to be surprised by my way of doing things."
He crossed his arms. "I do when it puts my Master's life in danger. You do remember what we're here to do, right?"
Did he think her a simpleton?
"Do you really expect me to follow the orders of a child without first getting a measure of their mettle?"
"That's not what I'm talking about at all." He waved it off impatiently, like he was swatting at a fly. "I can't say I've ever seen them first hand, but even someone like me has heard of your vaunted Celtic martial arts. You're a master who taught the likes of that Hound and his best friend. Despite that, I didn't even see so much as a…what's it called? Salmon leap? Out of you."
"Hypocrisy ill-becomes you, Emiya," she said coolly. "You talk about me holding back, but you've yet to say a single word to even your Master about your Reality Marble."
He stiffened, and beneath his furrowed brow, his eyes widened. "Where did you hear about that?"
Just now, from his mouth. Really, now. Did her own loss against the Hound make people assume that she was incapable of guile herself?
"There's little else to explain it," she told him. "Perhaps if you were a legend from the Age of Gods, it would have been the blessings of Hephaestus or Vulcan. If you were Wayland or some other famous smith, that too would be enough to divert suspicions. But your clothing and armor don't fit, not for any era where those men might have lived, your features are far too clearly East Asian, and your method of reproducing Noble Phantasms might be effective, but anyone familiar with the originals you're copying can immediately tell it's flawed."
His lip curled. "When I showed you Gáe Bolg —"
"— it wasn't the only clue, but it was the largest," she confirmed. "You may as well have waved a flag in front of my face."
In truth, there had only ever been suspicions. Emiya's peculiar brand of reproducing Noble Phantasms was very clearly a form of magecraft, as evident by his use of similar incantations for the projection of both mundane items and Noble Phantasms alike, and it was an idea only bolstered by the obvious connections between the hollow, worthless blades he had tossed at her by the dozens and the near-perfect recreation of Cúchulainn's — Scáthach's — famous spear. The trouble was, while reproducing Noble Phantasms wasn't an impossible feat, the methods for doing so were vanishingly rare, and most of them were themselves the sort of thing that qualified as a Noble Phantasm.
"Reality Marble" wouldn't have been Aífe's first guess, or even her fifth, but it wasn't like "Authority" was the more likely option when the man was so painfully human that he had likely never even come close to a real, actual divinity. The question that remained was what sort of Reality Marble would let him recreate Noble Phantasms, of all things.
He wasn't likely to tell her.
He clicked his tongue. "So maybe we're both holding things back for one reason or another," he allowed. "Difference is, one of my reasons is that I don't think my Master can support the energy expenditure of my Unlimited Blade Works."
Aífe's eyebrows rose.
Or maybe he would.
"I wonder what that says more about," she thought aloud, "your own inability to gauge your limits or your lack of trust in your Master's competence to know her own?"
Emiya scowled. "You really are trying to piss me off, aren't you? Do you think that I'm going to forget about my original point if you distract me enough? I'm not going to turn away no matter how many times you say 'look over there!' and point behind me."
That one, on the other hand, was still sore. Since it had changed the direction of her life so drastically, it was hard to imagine it would ever stop being so, not when it had been engraved on her so deeply that it still lingered after her death.
"Now you are provoking me," she accused him. "If you're that desperate for me to tan your hide like a disobedient child, you need only ask, Emiya, and I will gladly oblige you."
Something in his stance changed, and the air crackled with energy as Aífe's blood started pumping and her hands itched for the fight that was about to come. The tension zapped back and forth between them like bolts of lightning, discharging into the air like the flash of an approaching thunderstorm.
And then the tension in Emiya's shoulders deflated like a balloon and he relaxed, letting one arm fall limply to his side and the other hand rest itself on his hip as he looked away, like he'd lost interest.
"Whatever," he said indifferently. "If you're not going to talk about it, then I'm not going to bash my head against the wall trying to pry it out of you. At least one of us needs to keep his wits about him if we're going to make it through this mess, and as usual, it looks like it has to be me."
He turned around and started to leave, and her lip curled as she saw the tactic for what it was — a way to cut off whatever she might have wanted to say by making it look petty if she said anything at all.
He stopped. "There's just one thing I want to be clear on: ally or not, if this pride of yours endangers the lives of the Masters or Mash, I won't hesitate to cut you down myself."
He vanished into spirit form, gone, and Aífe clicked her tongue, scowling at the place where he'd been standing.
"No, of course you don't understand," she muttered to the air. "Someone like you, who has never accomplished anything with his own strength, who has always borrowed the strength of others greater than yourself, what do you know of the pride carried by a hero who clawed her way to the top through sheer determination?"
For all that some of Arash's mannerisms rubbed her the wrong way, it was clear that the ones who were actually diametrically opposed were herself and Emiya. Someone who had nothing of his own to take pride in would naturally understand nothing of the woman who prided herself on everything she had accomplished on her own.
It was only natural, then, that he wouldn't understand her methods and means, her way of doing things. It was also only natural that they would butt heads over it, that they might argue and snipe at each other, and that it would bring them into conflict. They were simply too different.
Her fingers tightened over the shaft of her spear, and she forced them to relax as she took in a deep, calming breath. It did little to settle the feeling in her gut.
In the aftermath of her battle with Tiberius and Julius Caesar, she had pledged that she could put aside her pride to work with the likes of Emiya, and she had no intentions of breaking that oath. It seemed, however, that it would be tested many times before this Singularity was resolved, and so too her patience.
"Damn it."
She really wanted to punch someone, now. Unfortunately, there were no "acceptable" targets in range, and she wasn't an Archer with their convenient Independent Action skill, so she couldn't rush out into the wilderness and hunt down a few magical beasts to work out her frustrations on.
Aífe glanced at the courtyard behind her, but the idea of going through another mock battle with her sister left a sour, unsatisfied feeling in her belly, so she bunched up her legs and leapt back up to the roof, scaling the building until she had returned to her original spot.
Her boots had barely settled before Arash's voice called over to her: "Get everything worked out?"
"No," she retorted shortly. But then, you already knew that, didn't you?
"I see," he said sincerely. "Sorry about that. I wish I could help you."
Tch. What was it with Archers and their talent for getting under her skin?
She couldn't leave the city to pick a fight, she couldn't fight anyone here, and fighting imaginary specters wouldn't satisfy. Aífe chose the only other way she was going to escape her frustrations at that moment.
"I'm going to take another nap," she announced. "Wake me if anything interesting happens."
He smiled. "Will do."
Unceremoniously, Aífe plopped back down into her original spot, reclining against the roof's slope with her hands folded behind her head. The moon up above her hung high, offering nothing, and a sigh hissed out of her nostrils as she closed her eyes and tried to quiet the roiling turmoil of her mind.
At some unknowable point, the real world slipped away, and Aífe drifted off into dreams.
This time, it was not her own past that played out behind her eyelids, but a strange and peculiar thing she didn't recognize, a dreary place of sterile walls and metal bars. Across from her was a young man, softer around the edges than most of the ones Aífe had trained over her lifetime, fuller in the face and thicker in the trunk, with determination burning in his eyes. He desired her expertise, her strength, not in the marital sense but in the martial sense of a student waiting to learn.
Her arms were longer and leaner than she was used to, her body taller and thinner, but she met that determination with her own, and his instruction in the martial arts began with the familiarity of something long practiced and honed. She was in her element, the teacher who had trained so many brilliant, standout students that her name had almost become synonymous with the act.
Even when they hated her for every moment of it.
This boy, so strange and yet so familiar at the same time, came to hate her for it, too.