Of all the things she would have listed as probable results of being caught sneaking into the home of another Magus, torture, death, being turned into a test subject, or some combination of those three would rank among the highest odds.
Being marched into the living room and stiffly served tea by the youngest while his mother glared at her wouldn't even rank high enough to warrant consideration.
The little click of the teapot being set down left in its wake a deafening silence as Rin withered under the western woman's glare. Then again, it had become abundantly clear even from their brief scuffle (though she knew that to call it such was easily giving herself far more credit than she deserved) that this was no 'typical' magus family.
If it weren't for the bounded field around the property and the way that Arturia had countered her
Gandr earlier she would have wondered if they were even Magi at all...
"Now," Rin barely managed to keep herself from flinching at the steel in that tone and forced herself to keep meeting the woman's eyes. "You are Rin -excuse me- Tohsaka Rin, Yes?"
"Yes, I am." She swore she could see a tiny spark of approval in those green orbs as she held her head high and nodded.
Another deafening silence, mercifully shorter than the first. Arturia raised the mug of tea to her lips and sipped at it, then set it down lightly. Shirou -seated perpendicular to them- shifted nervously, eyes darting from one to the other.
"What have you to say for yourself?"
Rin blinked, expectations once again subverted. Since it seemed no torture or death was immediately forthcoming, her expectations had shifted to a warning of some kind, most likely couched in incredibly polite-yet-terrifying language and filled with dire implications.
What she got instead was the most generic opening line of a parental lecture she could have ever conceived of.
The dissonance between expectation and reality was strong enough that all Rin really managed for a moment was a confused, "Eh?"
"You enter my abode without announcing yourself, and you skulk through its halls like a thief. These are rarely the actions of one with good intentions, however." She left out the part where she had tried to shoot a curse at her Rin noticed as the blonde motioned towards her, an open palm, inviting. "Seeing as you are young and one of Shirou's classmates I am giving you a chance to explain your reasons.. Prove to me that you are an exception to such generalities." The blonde woman's voice held an authority to it that sought to compel an answer from her, it was that of a king, (
shouldn't that be 'a queen'? Rin wondered silently at her own thoughts). This woman was sure of the power she held within this her domain.
With an effort of will, Rin held her tongue, refusing to speak until she had gathered her thoughts. Her mind raced, trying to determine what combination of truth and omission would get her out of here unharmed, but the momentary silence as she tried to come up with something to say before it was too late and the chance withdrawn, Arturia surprised her by speaking again.
"You were with Kotomine Kirei at the school today."
It was not a question, simply a statement of fact.
"Did he send you here?"
"No!" Rin blurted out the words quickly, too quickly, relief at being an unwittingly offered a way out prompting her to finally break her quiet before she closed her mouth again, a flush coming over her face. She'd lost her composure, said more than she should… The woman was still looking at her expectantly though, so she slowly continued. "No! I came by myself because I was-! I… I was curious!" Rin flushed with embarrassment as she realized that she'd just made several errors in etiquette (not to mention common sense given the power of the woman opposite her) and looked away. "I guess you must know him then huh..." The words were quiet, but still audible in the silence that had been left by her outburst. Arturia sipped her tea, her gaze unwavering, and Rin took that as permission to continue. "But you weren't expecting to see him there, and he wasn't expecting to see you. Which means..."
Across from her, Arturia leaned forwards slightly, brow furrowing. "Did you ask him?"
"After he took me home he wouldn't tell me anything!" Anger was starting to creep back into her voice, frustration. "A-and I… I wanted-! I... I was hoping to find out what… What Papa was..." Rin looked up at the blank expression on the blonde's face, trying to read any sign of reaction or intent from her but finding her irritatingly unreadable, her face schooled to a mask of blankness.
There was a faint awkwardness to the silence that hung over the table, broken only by the rumble of a stomach. Arturia shifted slightly, her gaze flicking to one side, breaking the vision of absolute authority and power for the first time.
Finally… She spoke. "Tohsaka-san, would you like to stay for dinner with us?"
She opened her mouth, refusal on her lips. Dinner? In the midst of negotiations? In enemy territory?
Then her stomach growled in turn and it was her turn to flush. "If… It is no imposition…"
She wasn't sure if that was better or worse than the childish stuttering and rambling she'd been doing before...
=======
"Tohsaka-san."
Rin looked up from the street to meet Arturia's gaze, breath misting slightly in the still-cool spring air. Dinner had been unique, though in a way that she couldn't quite put her finger on. An awkward silence had held the table with Shirou seemingly unsure of what to say, his mother apparently focused on eating, and her still trying to figure out just what the deal with this strange family was.
Even when Rin had told herself that she was going in circles she couldn't help but wonder. They were like an anomaly that shouldn't exist. Knowing of magecraft, yet apparently unaffiliated (beyond that still perplexing 'Einzbern' surname) with any actual family.
So perplexing it was that in spite of her efforts, she was still wondering on it as Arturia walked her home, an offer she'd tried to refuse but for the woman's firm insistence.
"Yes?"
"You are in Shirou's class."
Rin nodded reluctantly, for once her instincts seemed to have been vindicated with their assertion that the offer to walk her home had been pretext to get her alone. Silently she steeled herself, waiting for the proverbial other shoe to drop.
"I hope that you will watch over him for me-." Rin opened her mouth. "-He could use a good friend, and with a mage of your caliber keeping an eye on him, I could be much more certain of his safety."
Rin closed her mouth.
Her first thought had been that the woman was asking her to spy on her son, but that didn't add up with… Well… With
anything she'd seen so far. "Like… Some kind of bodyguard or something?" She ventured carefully, testing the waters.
Arturia chuckled and it took an effort of will for Rin to keep surprise at the sound off of her face. "Nothing so dramatic. Really, I think he could use a friend is all, and if that friend is powerful in her own right, so much the better."
In her own right… Rin turned that over in her head. It made sense, or at least some sense at any rate… The woman before her had shrugged off a spell like it was nothing, and if she was teaching Shirou…
"A-a…" She searched for the right word. "An Ally then." There was a flicker of
something in the blonde's eyes as she spoke, but it was gone in an instant, as fast as it had come.
"A friend will do. Tohsaka Rin." The tone was reassuring yet there was an edge to her words that made them anything but.
"A friend." She echoed softly. "Thank you for walking me home Lady Uh… Einzbern."
What have I gotten myself into now?
=End Chapter Seven=
Author's Note: Fuck this chapter.
No seriously, I am
so unbelievably glad to be finished writing this little arc of the story. Young Rin has been absolute hell for me to write as I cannot seem to get her voice to come out properly in my head, which just murders my motivation when more and more of what I write keeps turning out wrong wrong wrong.
Hopefully as she grows and becomes closer to her Canon self, I should be able to get a better handle on her character, but for now, I'm just happy that I can write stuff other than this little first day of Middle School arc.
I'm thinking a bit from Arturia's end to discuss her teaching job and the formation of her club maybe... We'll see.
Also, I tried sticking to only one perspective for this chapter. I think it might have made my job harder since that perspective was Rin's, but tell me how that compares to my earlier chapters where I bop around between perspectives to set the scene? I want to know how it matches up. Better? Worse? Or Just different?
Oh, and massive thanks to
@TheBleachDoctor and
@Swordomatic for help in making young Rin's dialogue actually sound like it should as well as general proofreading. You guys are the best. Seriously.
