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Kiritsugu has never slept easily. When Irisviel wakes up, she usually finds him sitting on the edge of the bed or standing at the window, with ragged shadows under his eyes and sallow cheeks beneath his stubble. He doesn't tell her much about his dreams; he's already told her most of those stories, he says, there's no reason to revisit them, his mind's just recycling old information. She accepts that, as she accepts the rest of what he's given her. But on bad nights, the ones where he thrashes awake and the bed creaks, each flicker of light in his eyes looks like a ghost running across, and the stories tell themselves.
"Do you dream?" he asks her one night, when sweat coats his back and mats the hair at his forehead.
"In a sense," she says; nothing like this, she thinks. "I process information I've received, and perform any repairs I need to, and it happens on a subconscious level. But I don't create anything new from that."
He nods, and doesn't—or won't—look at her straight on. "But the dreams are different each time?"
"Aren't yours?"
Kiritsugu doesn't answer, which is answer enough. Irisviel holds him closer, rests her head against his shoulder. Beneath his skin, he's trembling. She lets him keep his silence about that, too.
Irisviel's seen little enough of him since the war for the Grail began, but when they're reunited at the castle she doesn't miss the new hollows in his cheeks, the threads of red in his eyes. Some of that must be irritation from the smoke of the cigarettes and bombs. Not all, though.
She wonders if he finds any rest sleeping next to Maiya, if he confides his dreams to her. It's unworthy, and she pushes the thought away. She shouldn't begrudge him any moment of rest he can find in this war. If there's something he needs, something she can't give him—but he changes in her presence, deadens his gaze and hardens his mouth until the stranger from nine years ago stands before her, not her Kiritsugu at all. He knew no peace then.
There's no time for peace now, she supposes. And she tells him as much when he asks, and doesn't lengthen their embrace any longer than she has to.
But after the assault on the castle, after Kotomine Kirei nearly breaks her and Maiya both and Kiritsugu carries Maiya back while Irisviel and Saber follow behind, his body gives out. He slumps on the chair next to Maiya's bed, braces his elbows on his thighs and rests his forehead on his hands, and Irisviel can't bring herself to wake him. It would be best to check on Saber, she thinks. She barely looked at Irisviel when they walked back to the castle. Instead, she glared at Kiritsugu's back, her stare hot enough to burn a hole through his jacket. Kiritsugu has to harden his heart for this war. She knows that. But Saber's no stranger to war either, no matter how differently the two of them fight, and a king besides—
Kiritsugu jerks back in his chair, and his breath comes in ragged gasps.
Irisviel murmurs his name and rests her hands on his shoulders. He might not take comfort from her presence anymore, but as long as he doesn't flinch from her she'll touch him like this, hold him until his shoulders ease back down.
"Have the old dreams come back?" she asks. Maiya won't wake no matter how loudly she speaks, but she still keeps her voice to a whisper.
Kiritsugu shakes his head, his hair rustling against her shirt. "I've never seen this one before," he says.
Irisviel strokes his hair, waits for him to continue.
"I saw her," he says, and Irisviel doesn't have to ask who she is. "No, it's more than that. I was watching her world, her memories—" He breathes in. "I'm not a suitable Master for her. I can't be."
She doesn't dispute it. Not out loud, at least.
"Her chivalry brought her nothing. She fought for ten years, and in the end she lost everything. Her companions, her country…"
"There's more, isn't there?" she asks.
He swallows, eyes downcast. "There was a woman by her side. She reminded me of you."
"What happened to her?"
He doesn't respond.
***
Saber is standing at the end of a ruined hallway, just behind a pile of jagged stone. Dust floats in the air, but none of it clings to her jacket. Everything seems to acknowledge Saber's majesty; everything except Irisviel's husband, that is.
"Irisviel," Saber says, and turns away from the wreckage. "Are you certain you don't need to rest?"
"I don't think I could even if I wanted to," she admits, "but I don't want to. My body's fine."
A slight crease appears between Saber's brows. "Then nothing troubles you?"
She can't very well say no, I'm fine if she's chastising Kiritsugu for not telling his Servant things. "I wouldn't say that. But the trouble isn't with my body."
Saber nods once. Her hands still haven't unwound from fists, and she holds her arms rigid at her sides. "I, too, am troubled. These attacks trouble me—their nature, and their timing. My negligence in ensuring your safety troubles me. My Master—" She stops herself short.
"Yes, it's troubling." Irisviel wraps her fingers around Saber's fist. Saber's hand is small, but Irisviel's own isn't enough to span it. "And I know it troubles him, too."
"He does not show it."
"That's how I know he's troubled." Irisviel hesitates; there's no way to broach this that won't sound forced. "This might sound strange, but I know you sleep, Saber. Do you dream, too?"
"I myself, or Servants in general?"
"Both, I suppose."
"Servants do not dream," she says. "In a sense, Servants are dreams. They are copies made from the true forms of the heroic spirits, which are enshrined in the Throne of Heroes. Once these copies have fulfilled their function, they vanish, and all they learned and experience is lost, as though it never happened at all. The nature of the heroic spirit remains unchanged, no matter what its copies may do."
"Like a blueprint," Irisviel murmurs. She's all too aware, for a moment, of the thousands of alchemical sigils and formulas shimmering under her skin, holding her body together.
"Yes. And since the Servant disappears like that, and leaves no trace behind—I thought it wasn't unlike what happens when you dream."
"I think you're right." She frowns. "But you spoke about Servants just now, didn't you? Not you, specifically."
Saber pauses, and the smallest twitch works its way into her jaw. "I—work differently than most Servants do. So yes, I do dream."
"What about?"
She closes her eyes, as though she doesn't need them to see what's unfolding. "The shores of my country, and the lands I once governed. My castle, and the deep forest surrounding it, and the lake where I received the Lady's blessing. The knights who fought in my name for ten years. I don't imagine I could forget any of that, whether I'm asleep or awake."
Irisviel squeezes Saber's hand, and presses her other one over her heart. Saber speaks so plainly about such miraculous times, but Irisviel doesn't need poetry or embellishments when she's standing next to Saber like this and listening to her speak. Her voice, her form, her presence are enough to make what she describes appear again, for one brief shining moment.
"Why do you ask, Irisviel?"
"Kiritsugu had a dream tonight," she says. "It was about you."
Saber's fist twitches. Irisviel feels the shudder surge through her.
"It seems like the exchange between Masters and Servants has more to it than prana and Command Spells," she says, as gently as she can.
"Yes," Saber says, but doesn't relax. Moonlight filters through the shattered glass, scatters broken patches of light over what remains of the hallway. It's hard to look at the wreckage and imagine that it's the result of something that already happened, rather than something that's being waged around them still. The gouges in the wall look too fresh, and fine white powder still leaks from the cracks in the ceiling.
"Kiritsugu mentioned that he saw a woman standing next to you," Irisviel says at last.
There's no need to ask which woman. Saber doesn't flinch away this time; her eyes lower, then her head, then her shoulders. "My queen."
"Guinevere?"
"The same."
"All the stories I've heard say she was very beautiful."
"She was," Saber says, and closes her eyes again. Irisviel wishes they could find somewhere in the castle to sit, somewhere warmer and intact, but Saber's at least as restless as Kiritsugu is right now. "Some time after my reign began, I realized I needed to take a wife. When I held audiences in the throne room, my people always glanced to my left. They expected to see a queen seated beside me. Without one, there were no promises of kings to come after me. And my foster-brother said that as long as I remained unwed, none of my knights would have a chance with any ladies in Britain, because who would settle for a knight when they could have a king instead?"
She says it with a slight frown, like his reasoning puzzles her even now, and Irisviel bites her lip to stifle a smile.
"So my advisors began to search for a queen in earnest, Merlin most of all."
"You didn't look for one yourself?"
"I wasn't sure what I would need in a wife." Saber coughs. "I had never expected to have one. –Irisviel?"
"It's nothing," Irisviel says, moves her hand from her heart to her mouth. Really, she shouldn't laugh.
Saber doesn't look convinced. "If you say so."
"I do," Irisviel insists, and suppresses the last of her laughter. "Please tell me more. I like hearing your stories."
Is that a flush creeping over Saber's cheeks? It's hard to tell in this light. "As you wish. Well, as I said, I had enough affairs to look after that I was content to leave the search to others."
"Then who found Guinevere?"
"I did." A faint smile flickers on Saber's lips. "I was riding through Wales to visit an old friend of my father's, and I stopped at a small castle on the way. And as I rode through the gate, the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen looked down at me from the wall."
Just like a story, Irisviel almost says, but well, that's the point, isn't it?
"I stopped my horse where it was," Saber goes on. "It was rude to stare at a lady like that, I knew, but I couldn't move my eyes from her. Everything else about that castle, and my journey beyond it, is hazy even now—she made all the rest seem insignificant. We only stayed one night, but had I not given my word to my father's friend beforehand, I would have stayed much longer."
"What did you say to her?"
Until now, shy is the last word Irisviel would ever link to Saber, but there's no better word for her sideways glance, the slight color on the back of her neck. "Nothing at all. I was too entranced to speak. I didn't wish to say the wrong thing."
Saber's hand has relaxed enough that Irisviel can lace her fingers through Saber's, bring their arms closer together. "I think I can understand that."
"When I returned to court, I asked Merlin about her. He told me her name was Guinevere, a lady of great wealth and grace and beauty. I told him I had some idea of the last. But not of the rest, he told me."
"Hm?"
"I didn't understand either, and he would not explain further, even when I asked whether marrying her was best for my kingdom. Perhaps it was selfish of me, but—I did hope it was."
"I don't think it's selfish," Irisviel says, but Saber continues as though she hasn't heard.
"Arturia Pendragon can have no other queen but Guinevere, he said, and that fate seals all the rest."
It's Irisviel who shivers this time, wraps her fingers more tightly around Saber's.
"So it was decided. I needed her by my side, and she accepted."
"And—" Irisviel tilts her chin up, stares at a point just above Saber's head and not at Saber herself. Enough stories hint at the answer to this question, but the stories also say that King Arthur was a man, so who knows what else all those old men might have misread? "Were you happy together?"
When Saber turns to face Irisviel fully, a deep gash in the wall behind her is reflected in her pupils. "I want to believe we could have been," she says. "But I could only love her as a king, not as a husband."
"Did she love you?" Irisviel asks. "As a woman? As a queen? Either?"
"Queen Guinevere loved King Arthur. And it destroyed her."
Irisviel brings her hand to the hollow of her throat, where one of her largest energy centers lies. Someday, and soon, that Circuit will serve a new purpose. "And Guinevere herself—as a wife, as a woman?"
Those aren't gashes on the wall reflected in Saber's eyes, Irisviel realizes. They're wounds far older than that, ghosts from a time she can never fully understand. "That is for her to know."
She lets go of Saber's hand at last and wraps her arms around her instead, bends down to rest her chin on Saber's shoulder. Saber stiffens, but eventually her hands find their way to the small of Irisviel's back. It's not enough to ease Saber's dreams or chase away any of what haunts her. Short of winning the Grail, there's nothing with enough power to do that. All Irisviel can do is what she's always done: offer all she has, all the strength and love she can claim as her own, and hope some of it will reach Saber through whatever connection they share.
***
In the way homunculi dream, Irisviel dreams of her husband, integrates her knowledge of him and of Saber and the connection they share. In the morning, she'll greet Saber again, armed with what she's learned, and if she ever sees her husband after this—she'll know him better.