KENOS INBOX

[erbe]

COMMUNION

Reaching out to Rin is like stepping into a moonlit parlor. Everything is quiet, muted, and neatly tucked away. Almost like a "lobby," of sorts to keep visitors away from the rest of what goes on in her head... and her heart. This space is cool, and placid. Much like the surface of a lake in winter as it reflects the pale glow of the celestial bodies hanging above it in the sky.

A reflection of serenity rather the true thing. A mask of elegance to hide anything that may be unsightly. Anything that may betray her.

✧ Specifics

✦ Unable to block out: Harbinger
✦ Compatible with: Iconoclast | Advocate
✦ Discord Accrual: Exalt

(CODE)

Comments

[erbe]

[Tohsaka pinches the bridge of her nose. As if remembering the pain of a headache.]

Yes. Something about being a senior classmate.

[gravings]

[ Rin's phantom headache cannot stifle Gray's excited gasp and little lean forward. ]

Really?! So you did end up coming to our classroom!

[ Or... some version of Rin. In some version of their hypothetical future. ]

I guess it's not that surprising. I can see you fitting right in.

[erbe]

A-ah, Gray? Are you trying to make fun of me again?

[Fitting in?! With that unhinged cryptid of a man? Maybe dying with honor in the Holy Grail War might have been a preferable choice.

Well, at least she's here now. And doesn't have to think about the implications of Shirou Emiya ditching her sister to learn magecraft in London.]

[gravings]

[ In hindsight, she can see why Rin would say that. Not all mages looked on the El-Melloi Classroom or the Lord who headed it favorably. But naturally, Gray feels a need to put in a good word. ]

My mentor had a reputation for being able to bring out the potential in his students, so I'm sure you would have enjoyed being there. And actually, the class got popular enough that we'd often have students auditing. It was a very lively, and very talented classroom.

[ She's glowing... ]

[erbe]

[UGH!!!!! Why? Why does she have to look so cute like that? Why did she have to look so happy? It's too much! Rin groans.]

I'm not sure I'd be entirely satisfied with a classroom that had him in it.

[Flat, she means! What a grating boy.]

hi why is rin groping mitsuzuri

[gravings]

[ If only Gray could be confused about what Rin means by that. ]

Truthfully... he did give my mentor a lot of stress. He has a different way of looking at things, and enough talent that he can be hard to predict. But he was very kind to me when I first arrived in London.

[ So please be nice to him!! When they aren't fighting over Oracles and such. ]

NOT GROPING

[erbe]

Yeah, and if you're nice to him now you'll be even, so that clears the slate.

[She won't be nice! Especially if they're on opposite sides.]

[gravings]

Rin... I think you're the only one who measures favors that way.

[ Big favors, maybe. But these are just nice, friendly, casual favors. Sometimes people just like to be nice? ]

[erbe]

—Are you sure? How many standard mages are you familiar with? I'm not talking about weird ones like Flat.

[IT CAN'T BE JUST HER. IT'S THE MODERN KIDS WHO ARE WRONG.]

[gravings]

I'm not a mage, but I was still a student at the Clock Tower. And I met a lot of mages while I was accompanying my mentor, too.

[ So a fair amount?? Imagine Gray being more entrenched in mage society than actual mage Rin. ]

Of course, they all kept track of certain debts... but I've actually thought that mages can be easygoing in the strangest ways.

[ Y'all weird. Except for painfully normal Caules. ]

[erbe]

[Hrm.]

...Well, I suppose things would change since my father had studied there. He had graduated well before having me.

[She actually has no idea what to say so she's just side stepping around it.]

[gravings]

[ There are a lot of factors that could explain the difference in mindset, really. Maybe mages from the FAR EAST were a bit different culturally — or maybe Gray's experience is a bit skewed given her time spent around her mentor and the Modern Magecraft culture. But in the end, she thinks it's probably pointless to try to examine what's normal or not among a population of socially extraneous shut-ins. ]

Were there a lot of mages where you lived?

[erbe]

You know, oddly enough? Yes. My father had granted allowance for the Matou family to settle on our lands, the priest who ran our local church had studied as a mage under my father, and apparently we had a rogue sneak their way in without alerting the overseer — who was also my father.

[So much for mages who don't like to share. Maybe that's why her dad ended up dead.]

[gravings]

[ Gray doesn't have much frame of reference for what a normal population of mages is. It felt like she was always going to places where many mages gathered — no doubt a byproduct of her company. So she'll have to take Rin's word for it that two mage families, a priest, and a rogue are a lot for one city. ]

The priest was a mage? ... Isn't that unusual?

[erbe]

Extremely. It made him more dangerous, and an incredible nuisance. My family was close with the Church because they served as "referees" for the Holy Grail Wars. Since the Association and the Church have the same goal of keeping magecraft away from ordinary people, they worked together in that regard.

[gravings]

[ So Rin's family had close ties with the Holy Grail War. One might question whether that meant the Tohsaka family was cheating by getting cozy with the referees, but as Gray knows, any respectable mage would try to do the same. ]

My village had a priest too. He kept an eye on us on the Church's behalf, but he was still a kind person.

[ She doesn't know what possesses her to bring up such a meaningless detail. Nostalgia maybe, and gratitude to that round old priest. ]

[erbe]

Is that right? Well, I suppose not all priests would be similar to my legal guardian. After all he considered himself as a "man of God, not a man of the church".

[Whatever the hell that meant.]

Your priest was probably world's better. I hated the man who raised me.