She is home. After twelve-hundred years, her legacy emblazoned on the tapestry of history, it is reifying to breathe French air once again. And to stand once more in Avignon, holy Avignon! The torrent of centuries could do nothing to erode the majesty of hallowed stone, girding the city in proud walls, the parapets of cathedrals mantling high towers from whence exiled popes once contemplated the nearness of Heaven.

This is her realm, the very earth consecrated by the blood of heretics in her name. She can hear its call to her, like the Grail's own sovereign voice, beckoning her return. “Charlemagne, Empress, Daughter of God.” To be host to the vessel of Christ, no longer the tarnished star of Saxon infidels but returned to its rightful home in holiest France... It is the will of almighty fate, and nothing less.

And so, with incontestable right of rule, the Holy Empress takes up the long-abandoned throne of Avignon, seating herself in judgment for the Grail War which she shall soon oversee. The worthy shall be divided from the unworthy, all for the greater glory of God, of whom she is herald on earth.

The boy comes alone, his passport and papers all in perfect order. His accommodations at the Hôtel de Ville, his suite overlooking the palatial square below, have been purchased well in advance, an entire floor of his own from which to plan the destruction of, one presumes, the modern world's most elite mages. Now secure in the solitude of its private quarters, the body of Andreas Ragnvaldr IX responds to the will of its master, dutifully retrieving from its suitcase the velour blindfold and a spool of thread. Sitting on the edge of the bed, the host begins, pushing the needle full through the corner of its lip without the slightest flinch, bright blood sluicing down its chin, and then again, and again, tying taut the mouth that is no longer needed. Reinforcements of mana close the punctures tight as soon as the thread is drown through, until the boy's lips are sealed.

That finished, the old spirit moves its grandson to the center of the overlarge bedchamber to begin the summoning. A lesser mage would require a conjuration circle, imploring aid from the Grail in the evocation of a heroic spirit, but Andreas Ragnvaldr I has no need of such paltry contrivances. He merely lifts the boy's arm, its hand outstretched, and creates the skull he will use as catalyst, every molecule replicated from the authentic item stored in the Dead Apostle's library two-thousand miles to the north. It hovers in the air before him, its empty gaze meeting that of his puppet's.

Without preamble, Andreas' raises his disembodied voice, channeling the specter of True Magic across the distance separating them. “Byron! You mad churl, come forth!”

She hadn't really had a plan coming here, which isn't anything strange. This doesn't seem all that different from her usual escapades, and she's been meaning to visit France for a while now. Emilie figures she'll just wander the streets and see what she can find. It's certainly pretty, in an antique-feeling way, caught halfway between tourist trap and college town. It almost reminds her of home, just... a lot more cramped.

She has all her stuff in a backpack for now – and thankfully there's no guard-post for checking into the city, so her weaponry has made it into Avignon intact. It almost feels like going back in time, with nearly no cars and people just congregating on street corners leading off into narrow avenues. She's on the southeast end of the city, looking for somewhere she can crash. It's pretty warm, and she's starting to sweat carrying all this gear around. Crossing a street she doesn't bother to note the name of, Emilie digs her Pez-dispenser out of her skirt pocket and pops a THC pill to keep her chill going. No point appreciating all this old-world chic sober.

Eventually, she finds a shabby-looking boarding house that seems like it'll suffice. She steps inside, noting the cute clerk before raising her sunglasses. That's a plus. Maybe she won't even have to kill this one if she gets her wish.

Lodgings secured, Emilie starts unpacking, assembling her SMG and loading her belts and harnesses with supplies. That accomplished, she sets aside her... catalyst, and takes up her inscribing kit. Not being an exceptionally well-read individual, Emilie had almost no idea on who she should summon, but a fairytale princess ought to work. Probably.

It'll take a couple of hours to finish the rune circle, and the lighting in here isn't great for precision mage-craft, but she's pretty excited to meet her Servant.

The lavishly dressed poet lowers his goblet from his lips.

“I wish.” He looks disdainfully at the damp state of his frock. Though the dark wine isn’t affecting the colour much, it’s certainly unbecoming. “You couldn’t have done that with a little more finesse, could you? I have ruined by coat.”

George Gordon, Lord Byron, sixth lord of his declining line, turns to look at his master.

He raises one eyebrow while looking at the…child, with discerning burgundy eyes. He takes another sip of his wine. “This,” he flourishes his arm about the room, spilling a little more wine, this time on the lush carpet, “was you, yes?”

He soon loses interest in his scrutinizing and turns to look out the window over the square. “Ah, this is fresh. How long has is been since I have been through such environs? How long before we shall go out and explore?” He taps his waistcoat, once, then two more times. “I must have a pen!”

Finally having mixed the reagents and prepared the space for the ritual, Emilie retrieves the last item from her overstuffed backpack, a heavy burlap sack, the contents of which clatter against each other as she hefts it up, upending it onto the bed. A cavalcade of bones tumbles out into a heap, the skull last, landing face-down atop the pile.

"Rupert, you useless bag of bones! Pull yourself together!" At her command, the remains begin to rattle among themselves, jittering and vibrating, quite a few of the smaller joints -- and a tibia -- escaping to the floor. Emilie observes the debacle with crossed arms.

"Come onnnnn! I'm the homeless addict here, and you still look like a shambles! Fine, I'll help you." With the bored precision of having done this far too many times, the necromancer begins organizing vertebrae until she has the spine constructed to attach to the skull. She goes so far as to give her familiar one constructed arm, and is so generous as to attach it by the shoulder.

"There. You can do the rest yourself. Miserable old schwinehund." She leaves the skeleton to construct itself, pouring herself a half-glass of vodka to wash down two more pills, which she imbibes in a single gulp. Rupert is now attaching his pelvis. Emilie unrolls the diagram for the summoning circle, turning it up and down in her hands while trying to figure out which way she's supposed to read it. It's awfully complicated, all those minute details. She wonders if the little curly bits on some of the runes are important. She tosses it away. "Fuck it, you can figure it out."

She looks up to her familiar, and laughs irrationally, only to be interrupted by an uncomfortable hiccup. Wiping her mouth, she points at the skeleton, still cracking up. "You are such a dummbatz. You put your feet on backwards!" Not terribly concerned with her familiar's ability to balance, she launches herself onto the bed behind him, getting comfortable on her side.

"Wake me up when you have it done, Rupes. I'm way too crunk for magic right now."

The child betrays no reaction to the Heroic Spirit's arrival, and less still to his grandstanding. From elsewhere than that mutilated mouth, the voice of Andreas addresses his Servant. "I suggest you master yourself, Lord Byron. Tell me..." The child moves now to stand squarely before its thrall, blinded eyes staring up into the poet's powdered visage. "The laws of death have been suspended in your favor. Do you know why?"

She remembers very little. Hers had been a pious life, a devotee of Saint Mark, anointed paladin of the Archbishop von Reisberg, yet also a life of bloody duels, laying overfed young braggarts to early graves. So it seemed just that her eternity should take such form as this, not rendered of those red torments of which authors and vicars proved ever so enamored, nor had she been delivered to providence among the saints. Somehow, this suited the Fechtmeister. The party of her own musings was engagement enough to last her through the lilts of endless time. Musings on ingenious new ways to lever the human body against itself, or how to strangle a man in a hole with a sock, would occupy her until the end of all things. And so it is with some degree of annoyance that she is interrupted from her meditations, and by what?

An invitation to live again. To fight in such battles as the earth had never known in her era. To serve as the champion knight of a worthy master, and to face the greatest warriors of history in deadly contest.

Academia of the sword is a failed knight's pursuit, she decides immediately. This war for the Grail of God is the paradise her soul has craved. She accepts without question, embracing the onslaught of knowledge that the shining vessel bestows on her, stepping through light into the world of the living once again.

Arriving, and tempering her excitement, the swordsmistress falls to one knee before her new lord, proffering her weapon to the man she will serve.

"By the faith of the Saint, I am yours unto death, mein Herr. This sword has no name, but shall serve thee better than Excalibur itself. In life, my peers knew me as Oberfechtmeister Talhoffer, but if thou shouldst so please, I am Nina, thy Saber."

She recalls fire, consuming a calm, Parisian morning even as it devoured her eyes, her flesh, the final sensation of her mortal existence the smell of her own melting skin as it sloughed from brittle bones, before the flames reached her brain. And that had not been the end, oh no. Greater fires, immortal fires, awaited La Voisin as bitter old eyes closed on one world and opened on a new, the insatiable pyre of her unholy master. Sealed within a coffin of stone, packed tight with burning coal, eternity is smoke and pain for the great murderess, the greatest murderess! How many had she slain, gutting them upon the altar, tearing lifeless children from eviscerated wombs? And how many more dead from the bane she peddled: infidel lovers and cuckolds alike, all to glut the diseased passions of those people, her people! Yes, she had killed them with glee, dozens becoming hundreds becoming thousands, oh the terror! Was she not La Voisin? Damnation was a formality for the greatest slayer who had ever lived.

How bizarre, then, how sickening to have her smoldering cairn smashed open above her, invaded by light, disastrous light! The coals suffocated at its touch, leaving her cold and naked beneath its hovering judgment. It felt holy.

And to hear it call to her, her! La Voisin! Oh, the irony! How sick was that lecher God, to bind her to this righteous purpose? She, who had swept across Paris as a plague, turning love to treacherous death wherever she should pass... to frame that now as some sort of Heaven-spawned punishment, making her the instrument of divine castigation... preposterous! Ribald and gross! She was a tool of the Devil, vile, obscene, bane to all mothers, and now to be called upon by Almighty God? Heinous obscenity!

Catherine shrieks within her burnt-out skull as the light wraps about her like chains and hauls her from her charnel seat. And suddenly she is once more in France -- she would know its corrupt air anywhere, it never changes. Home.

Standing before the man who would now function as her Master -- she knows this now, imparted knowledge by the wretched light. Studying him, Catherine is startled by his youth and seeming naïveté. This will be... different than she presumed. He does not look like the sort of person who will appreciate her indulgences.

Observing him for an uncomfortably long moment without offering any sort of greeting, Assassin eventually tilts her head to the side, raising a pensive finger to her chin. In her rich, throaty voice, she inquires of him, "Little boy, have you any idea what you've done?"

Catherine maintains a smiling facade while deciding to bend her clairvoyance to her new master, more in disbelief at his lack of preparation for the Grail War, than for anything else. And sure enough, he is as ignorant to all this as the innocents of Heaven she'd cast to Hell would ever be.

Clucking her tongue, she tilts her head the other way, condescension narrowing her eyes. "Oh, mon petit seigneur chéri, but of course. Allow me to regale you with my wisdom. If you would do us both the favor of looking, you shall see that through our bond, you are aware of my abilities as your Assassin-class Servant. I am all but undetectable to our enemies, and possess powerful alchemical magic, on which note..." she snaps the fingers of her left hand, and produces a small vial filled with some frothing concoction that seems to roll through a variety of ugly colors. She proffers it to the boy. "Do take this, it will inure you to the particular flavor of mana I prefer to employ. I'd hate to see you heaving up those beautiful young organs of yours, so be a dear."

Sometime later, Emilie awakens with a yawn and pounding headache, but that's no matter, she has Vicodin. Rubbing her eyes, she sits up to see Rupert standing totally motionless over the best damned summoning circle she's ever seen, which says precisely nothing, but she sure is impressed with it. She should... probably... do the ritual before medicating.

Hopping up from the bed, Emilie goes to grab the catalyst, before realizing with a dismay she has no energy to appreciate that she can't remember where she put it. "Ruuuupes," she whines over her shoulder, "did you happen to see where-- oh. Cool, thanks bud." She accepts the cheap plastic dvd case from his outstretched hand and retrieves the disc of die Schwan Prinzessin, inspecting it lazily before determining with no metric whatsoever that it looks serviceable. She hands it back to her skeleton. "Do the honors for me, pal?" His silent dignity nearly brings a tear to her eye... or that's the withdrawal, but whatever.

Rupert places the disc in the precise center of his circle, and Emilie gets herself psyched up. "All right, Rupes, you ready for this ghetto-ass ritual? Hold onto your teeth, bro." He gives her no discernible reaction, and encouraged by his support, she begins the incantation, which may be in some ancient dead language, or is quite possibly total nonsense she's making up on the spot. Regardless, though, her mage crest alights in brilliant green, shining through her clothes and from her exposed skin, nearly her entire body inscribed with necromantic glyphs. She can see herself in the mirror across the room, the tiny runes covering her eyeballs making them glow like she's some kind of wraith. Badass.

"How did it go again? Guardian of the scales, evil in the world, blah blah blah, I want to get hiiiiiigh, spirit of madness, I need a Servant, fuck this headache, abracadabra!"

Well, at least he's amenable to her suggestions. Though, if that trait extends beyond her alone, it may prove a problem. Even still, more surprising is his idea for their next move. Does he even understand what he's proposing? She certainly doesn't object to a bout of wanton slaughter of the innocent, but this Donovan may well be about to get far more than he bargained for.

Assassin shrugs at him. "Some Servants do. I have neither the ability, nor need, for such sustenance. You will notice I exert almost no toll in mana on you whatever. Only in bright daylight will you feel any strain from my magic, but if it's only weak humans it won't matter regardless. Do mind, though, our bond has weakened me physically, I'm no stronger than you in that regard. With that in mind..." Catherine rolls her wrist, the fanned cards of her Noble Phantasm appearing between her gloved fingers.

"The ritual has provided me with a surplus of mana. Consider this first draw essentially free. Would you care to try your luck, mon bon garçon??"

"Oh, Monsieur Donovan, mon amoureux, it is so cruel to tease your humble Servant so. Mais, alors, alors, ce n'est pas rien. Yes, s'il te plait, draw boldly."

As his fingers touch his chosen card, before he can even pull it fully free, it bursts into flame, burning without heat or pain, the fire an orange so dark it hazards on black, arcing from the arcanum in his hand up to Assassin's eyes, invading them as though threatening to reveal her true form. But this is not the fire the killed her, it does not melt flesh or char bone. It merely becomes her sight, makes of her gaze a thing of agony to any who behold it. Except for her darling Master, of course.

"Excellent choice," Assassin purrs, a blink of her long-lashed eyes shedding fire like tears down her cheeks as the card falls to ash Donovan's hand. "We are blessed by Morning Star, so radiant as it plummeted to Hell. Well chosen, indeed, my Master."

"Oh, whatever pleases you most, mon doux. I'll spend the greater part of our time disembodied, unless you order me otherwise. And I would not sully your esteem of me with descriptions of my preferred environs."

Her eyes suddenly narrow, clairvoyance flashing across the city in a search for the mana-signatures of other Servants, finding nothing within the mile she can sense. "Even more," she adds, "Once we begin, I'll be quite taken up with hunting our enemies, I'm sure. I don't mean to take a passive roll in this war. You are, of course, free to compel me otherwise with a Command Seal, but do attempt wisdom in their use, dear."

Byron looks down at the child figure, a serious expression on his face. "Of course I do. That's part of the game, is not?" He took the last sip of his wine before putting the goblet down on a side table, the cup wobbling slightly and threatening to topple before steadying with a rolling rattle.

"You summoned me to join you in your war, but if you won't see fit to extend some adequate hospitality then I shall see to my own entertainment while I am here." He turns sharply to the window again, his arms clasped behind him. "It has been a long time since I've been to France. I certainly hope we won't remain confined to this interior while we go about your business."

The scene would be absurd in any other circumstance, even or especially among other Masters and Servants, yet nonetheless, the boy surges forward, its elbow snapping up at inhuman speed against the libertine lord's neck and driving him against the wall. There is no hint of anger or displeasure in the Dead Apostle's voice, merely statement of fact.

"You will have been informed about certain truths regarding the nature of this war. For your own benefit, I recommend you discard them. Neither you, nor I, have breathed human air for centuries now dead. I did not need the Grail's aid to bind you here, and I won't need these Seals to command your obedience."

Andreas relents, then, trusting that the point has been made. It is doubtful that this puppet could do any real harm to the Servant, but he suspects Byron now believes otherwise.

"That being said, I've no interest in unduly immiserating you, my lord. You may do as you wish until I have need of you. I will not require your protection."

"I have need of this vessel, you can't have it for your perversions. Go find some poor French child to prey upon, if that is your whim. I care nothing for it. My 'inclination', my lord, is to engineer the death of six Heroic Spirits and enact the Second Magic. But the thought arises in me now that I should, in fact, accompany you. It would be an inconvenience if you were to perish. I doubt the aspiring deity in the palace would look kindly on my summoning a replacement. Lead the way, my lord."

The façade was kept neat, an old relic maintained to advertise the city’s historic nature, but the door was locked and the building abandoned. In the upper floor, Henri looked out the tiny, antique window. The street was frequented by tourists and sightseers, but none approached the old store, or any of the other old buildings in this section of the city. The floor he stood on now wasn’t furnished in any fashion, but it was free of infestations and provided a workable space for him. It was adequate; therefore, it was enough.
The summoning would require space, and it would be messy. Best to see to it elsewhere.

Bucket and brush in hand, Henri stood back from his handiwork: the meticulously drawn summoning circle painted in blood on the concrete floor of a lavish fountain. He had disabled the water for the time being. Satisfied, he lifted the bucket and dumped the remains of the pig blood over himself, and extended his marked hand out to the circle, and chanted:

“Thou art bloody…thou art bold…thou art resolute…call'st thyself a hotter name than any is in hell. Swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn! Brandished by man that’s of a woman born!”

Byron chuckles at his new honorific, though he can’t help some mild affront at the assumption of his tastes. “Oh please! Have you no imagination? Your “puppet” will be left alone, I would first see what opportunities we have around us, before devoting my attention to anything singular.”

From his window viewings, Byron takes a moment to analyse his current dress. “It would see that I am out of fashion for this time. Perhaps we should first see to some suitable raiment, especially as my breeches remain wine-marked.”

He lay in a landscape of dead children, where blood fell from Heaven like summer rain. He did not wander it, there was no need. His place was here, in the muck and viscera of dead scions and dead mothers, the wreckage of pillaged castles aflame in the hazy distance. The wind sang an endless elegy, a mourning hymn of but a single lyric: 'Murderer.' They had called him a devil, and so he was in truth, and like that sullied star, his evil was rooted in fear. Macbeth did not wish to move, because he did not wish to know what else this world held for his damned soul. And so, he shivered, naked and crownless, his lungs long since grown numb to the stench of the slaughtered.

He had no idea how long he had lain here. Time was meaningless to soul beyond God's grace, but in some sense -- although it would never be long enough -- he felt that it had been long indeed. All those children he'd had raised on pikes and all those mothers beheaded lest they spawn the one to lay him low, would all be long dead by now. That thought -- it was a thought. He knew not what to do with it.

Resigned to his fate, the tyrant almost missed the change in the wind, the fading of the voice of judgment for something else entire. A sovereign voice calling his wretched name, calling him... to rebirth? What mad world was this? Some torment devised by gaoler angels to enkindle hope, only to snuff it like the lives of those sinless babes?

But he cared not! For even the chance, the whim! of Rebirth! He would murder them all again, and a million more! To breathe air unconquered by his crimes, he'd damn himself ahundredfold anew! "YES!" came his cry, as he had never cried in his torments prescribed. "HECATE AND HADES, TAKE ME AS THINE OWN! LUCIFER GUARD ME AS IS ANGELS' WONT! I FALL TO LIFE AS RISEN TO DEATH, A KING ONCE MORE, OVER SEVEN OCEANS' BLOOD IF NEEDS MUST! MAKE WHORES OF ALL THE SAINTS AND A HOG OF CHRIST TO RAPE THEM! I WOULD SELL THE WORLD TO GAIN MY SOUL. I'D SEND GOD HIMSELF TO A WORSER PIT, BREACH ANY LAW, WREAK ANY CRIME, SO SATAN FEND, I ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCEPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT!"

"Your own fault, I am sure we will both agree, but do lead on, my lord. This city is aglut in overpriced dross. My puppet is equipped with funds sufficient for even your extravagance."

As they exit the hotel, widened eyes following them from the lobby, Andreas speaks once more to his Servant. "Not to intrude upon your amusement, but have you any thoughts of strategy? I would not presume to tell you your business, my lord."

"Oh! Of course, my lord!" Talhoffer springs to her feet, stowing her sword in her belt. "Please, allow me." She begins to hurriedly tidy the place up, her Servant agility making the process a whirlwind of activity that's a wonder she doesn't make more of a mess than she cleans. But she is the meister, and no mere cluttered hovel is equal to defeating her. The task is quickly finished.

Smoothing the last crease out of the bedspread, Talhoffer rounds on her Master, bowing in stiff military fashion. "You honor me, Master." She straightens, brushing her hair from her face. "Is there aught else you've need of, or shall we depart now? I must admit, I'm eager to begin."

"I'll sleep in the burning tombs of Dis when this is through. Until then, my vigil will be without end. Take your rest, Master. I'll send any who attempt you on a swift flight to Hell." Assassin rather hopes the chance to make good on that promise will present itself. This is already becoming a bore.

The thought passes the great swordsmistress, that perhaps her Master is taking her role as his Servant somewhat too literally, but she has no objection to obliging, there does not appear to be any pressing threat.

Talhoffer follows Erik out, the heavy door hinging closed behind them. She finds the discarded furniture and rolls the table back to the room, coming to the sudden horrid realization that the door has locked. Her eyes widen in anxious dismay as she tests it again, and yes, it is in fact locked tight. Her Master seems to value orderliness, and it would not do to approach him around other humans without permission. Her options are few, and it is seeming prudent that her course be to hide this grievous error, which will entail rather unknightly behavior.

Checking the hallway for anyone watching, Talhoffer proceeds to the far end and cautiously slides open the window, keeping what she hopes is a mental count of how many rooms she's passed from theirs. The distance to the ground does not dismay her; she is reasonably confident that she could leap the dozen stories below with no ill effect, but she was never the best climber in her life before.

There is no balcony, and almost nothing to grip, and it is with some consternation that the newly-summoned Saber climbs out on the sill, searching for purchase. Of course, there's little to find.

"I'd not thought my first trial would be of such a nature, but all is as the Lord wills." Securing her belt, the lithe woman crosses herself and leaps from the sill toward the next room over.

And overshoots somewhat, passing five or six, instead, but thankfully catching hold. She is not quite used to this.

Judging her next jump more carefully, she's nearly startled into a plummet by a piercing feminine scream from the other side of the window. Talhoffer jumps frantically away even as the silhouette of a large and nude man is leaping from its bed to investigate.

"By the Saint, what have I gotten myself into?" she mumbles, attempting to peer into what she believes is their hotel room. Deciding against all precedent to trust her luck, Talhoffer awkwardly unsheathes her sword and levers the window open with the tip, rolling inside with a sigh of relief. No one immediately leaps to arms to confront her.

Jamming her sword under the damnable door, Saber rapidly finishes her task and hurries down to the lobby to meet her Master, hoping the flush in her cheeks will go unnoticed.