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[center][h1][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld6EnO4HPdI&]The Form of a Man[/url][/h1][/center]

Unsettling. It was an unease that brought a perturbed feeling to most. Not to Saber. He wondered which brought the black.  Which came first with the overbearing darkness that seemed to be a blackness that would stand as a firm opposition and enigma even in the face of the light of heroes in these halls. Was it the man who spoke, or was it the land itself that was seeped into this sense of oddity. The old voice, did it reflect the land or did the land and manor reflect it?

Yes to fight in a magus's workshop, to fight in a soldier's hometown. It was in defending what was precious to them, to fight where they were the most connected to their own origin and identity. A magus was a magus because of what they toiled towards and created in their workshop. A soldier was a soldier because they fought for the sake of their nation.

This was the Roma of the Matous, the place where they would most be the Matous. 

“That is indeed true. All are complete, their strength waxed when they are at a place they leave part of themselves, whether it be their ambition or heart. We have brazenly intruded, your words are correct. My master did not propose an alternative idea, but I shall admit truthfully I wished for such a trespass. A challenge let us say. I wished to see the mettle of the Matou, of the Japanese for what we have seen of the Tohsaka is lacking, disappointing. I feel no servant, nor do we feel a master. But there is someone here, there is someone who will declare this is their home. You are different from the one who fled without a challenge."

His words bellowed into the darkness like a tangible roar which held a firmness that was at odds with the oppressive and murky pressure of the world so separate from the world of the city of Fuyuki. Almost like an alien presence, inserted into the home of the Founding Family, the roars of the lion clashed with the chattering of insects.

It was hard for Saber to understand and judge magi.

Self-suggestion, the art of hypnotizing and changing one’s self in accordance to the chances they enacted externally. Something as fundamental as that was part of what Saber had come to understand, and was told of in what his master had shared of her sister. 

A magus could change themselves, prepare the existence of a persona that was a heartless machine that carried out a singular process, create a face that would mingle with and charm normal humans, or reach a state of enlightenment and nothingness that transcended the world.

A malleable existence, so different from the servants that were records of the past completed and captured. Yet even without considering that Saber was a man who lived earnestly, dedicating his entirety of being to one life and one being. 

He was the Lion of Rome.

What were they?

What was this ancient man whose voice echoed with an age that seemed beyond any magus he would have expected.

What was the woman who stared into the halls, whose eyes held a wish for the darkness to be revealed as something else. She was a regal mistress and a frightened lamb. But that was the expression of a lady, and that of a human even through the lens of the life of a magus.

What was she, really? He could not feel it, he does not know. What is the nature of the Roma he protects? 

Despite his desire and curiosity he kept his attention focused on the presence, and the void in the manor. The threat that was not there, the threat that was already there. His duty to protect his master came first, but still…

“I am Saber, the blade of my master. I ask who we speak to. I ask who has stayed behind, and who welcomes us in the stead of the one whose duty should bring them here, the master.”