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Story: [Love at first sight]

Summary: It'd been a long, long time since he'd met her. A long, long time since he'd been struck speechless by everything that she was.

Genre: Romance, Spiritual, Drama

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Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

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Was it so strange that he fell in love at first sight?

Lips like frost on a summer morning, eyes like sunshine in a rainstorm, skin like a midwinter blaze, and a voice like honey on steel.

He could never explain her, never really tell anyone of her. But he was in love, hopelessly and utterly. It wasn't really a matter of beauty, nor a matter of personality. She just was, and there could be no words for the way his heart clenched at every hesitantly brief glimpse of her.

Love was never a word that he'd understood. It wasn't a word that he'd ever tried thinking about, and it wasn't a word that he'd ever really experienced.

He liked many things, cared for many people, and enjoyed making others happy. But 'love' was a word that had seemed foreign on his tongue ever since that first meeting. Ever since he'd fallen in love with her.

But of course, no love story is complete without tragedy.

He'd loved her, and so he had overlooked so many others. He'd passed them by, never giving them a second chance, never considering that in doing so he had ruined them just as she had once ruined him.

She couldn't stay, she could never have stayed, that was just how it was. And since she couldn't stay, he'd followed her, blindly and unquestioning.

In the end, he'd never found her. He'd been caught, torn and twisted, until he couldn't see the path, until he couldn't see her footprints, until he just didn't know the way.

And in that hopeless position, he had only been able to curse himself for following so blindly, for not taking note of the landmarks, for not learning where the road that he'd walked had been leading to.

So, when a voice of someone he forgot about, asked him for one final favor... how could he have told her 'no'?

Light, pain, sound, the lingering smell of magecraft and fire.

Glancing around the destroyed room, he leaned back into the ruined couch that he seemed to have landed on.

A favor. A desire. A wish. A goal.

He was lost, he didn't know the way, he'd never learned how to find it, and all he could do was continue walking in aimless hopelessness. So of course he'd answered her. Answered her plea for assistance.

But even so, all he could really see – and feel, and hear – were eyes like sunshine in a rainstorm, lips like frost on a summer morning, skin like a midwinter blaze, and a voice like honey on steel.

It was so pointless to answer her, but his desperation didn't let him ignore her, so he'd come when she'd called. Even if this favor would not help him, even if it would merely delay his return to that aimlessly accursed path.

There was a loud 'thud', as if someone had tried to tackle the door. And yes, the door had moved slightly, despite the debris that should've left it firmly wedged shut.

He couldn't help the sarcastically amused smirk slipping onto his lips, because of course she wouldn't be stopped by a door. And even if he'd never been able to see her for the lingering memory of eyes like sunshine in a rainstorm, he knew her well enough that even if the door had been kept shut by the Root itself, she would've just gone through the wall next to it.

A final thud, and the door burst inwards, making her stumble slightly as she tried to get her bearings. Her eyes darting around, taking in the chaos that had most likely been a sitting room at one point, before finally alighting themselves on him.

There was fondness in his voice when he addressed his new 'Master', though the amusement that was also present was enough to raise her ire.

Huffing angrily she set him on the task of cleaning the mess, as she got some rest.

The house smelled of magecraft, fire, dust, and old books. He might've been startled by smelling dust, but then he supposed that she'd never been the type to bother doing something unless it was necessary.

The thought of her wearing an apron as she dusted, provided plenty enough amusement to keep his smirk firmly in place until his Master finally reluctantly stirred from her bed.

After that, the smirk grew wider.

He did his duty, and amused himself by twisting his Master's words around on herself, just because he could.

He followed her orders, he bore her impulse to save a young fool with carefully deliberated stoicism. And then eyes like sunshine in a rainstorm, lips like frost on a summer morning, skin like a midwinter blaze, and a voice like honey on steel.

He watched, detached, as her sword nearly split him in two.

He couldn't feel the pain, his eyes too focused on her own, his heart unmoving in his chest, his bones aching longingly to hear her voice once more, his fingertips twitching helplessly as they wanted to reach for the heat of her skin.

After that, how could he do anything other than hate the red-haired boy who knew nothing, and who would undoubtedly follow her blindly? The boy who was able to hold everything that he'd so hopelessly wished for, who could still follow the footprints that were fresh on the ground, and whose every movement was followed by eyes like sunshine in a rainstorm.

So he hated him for everything that he'd once had, for the things that had been lost to him on his accursed path. But eyes like sunshine in a rainstorm followed his own movements warily, knowingly, and so he kept his distance.

Until his Master dumped a load of books into his arms and told him that they were going to be allies with the fool, and that she couldn't be bothered to carry such a heavy load all the way to their new headquarters.

After that, distance became difficult to find.

At first, his Master concluded that he was wary of their allies, then guessed that he was bitter about being defeated so soundly by another, then she actually started to pay attention.

His Master was not a woman to take lightly, even if she'd always been so terribly distant to the image in his heart of eyes like sunshine in a rainstorm, so it wasn't surprising that she learned of it so quickly once she actually tried to see.

He was lovestruck, and bitter, and envious, and hopelessly exquisitely torn by every glimpse of her. And perhaps it should've been obvious that his Master would've been unhappy with it.

He was her Servant, she was his Master. That he would belong so... deeply to another, was a violation of that. Perhaps a minor one, but she'd never been the type to let things slide.

Perhaps it was simply that, or perhaps it was the realization that the fool's eyes would linger at eyes like sunshine in a rainstorm, and that she wanted something more than merely being 'allies'. It was always a little bit hard to tell with her, his Master was a complicated person.

But she couldn't really do anything about where her ally's eyes lingered, because that was not the nature of their alliance, and so she was left with only a single outlet for her frustration.

She'd always been a beautiful young woman, but the only ones she wanted to have pay attention to her, were already incurably infected by a voice like honey on steel. It was perhaps a point of pride to her, though he'd never really considered such a thing previously.

She was... not-her, so how could she hope to compare? It had nothing to do with being beautiful, or being strong, or being charismatic... she just was. And the rest of the world seemed to just disappear into thin air as if it all was merely a house of cards in a tornado.

Why would the stars compare themselves to the moon? They were completely different things, and what was 'norm' for one, was 'absurdity' for the other. But even so, perhaps he should've expected it, somehow.

There was no point in resisting her more eccentric orders, so he simply sat down when she asked him to, and absently made a sarcastic comment about if their proximity would be considered entirely appropriate from an outsider's perspective.

He really really should've known something was different, when she didn't react to it.

She always reacted, be it to growl, to curse, to don a disturbingly polite mask of friendliness, or to blank away the entirety of her expression in an effort to hide her emotions even from herself. She always reacted.

Except she didn't.

"What do I smell like?"

It was such an innocent question. Possibly related to a perfume, possibly related to if she was in as much need of a shower as she feared, and a question that registered as pointless small talk. But he was blind, and his ears were still too deafened by a voice like honey on steel to actually hear the alarm bells ringing in his head. Because nothing his Master did was ever pointless.

So he obediently took a deep breath through his nose, and simply answered her. "Old books, and fire." Never considering that the fool would've given her the same answer, and that this was just another incriminating fact at her disposal.

She stared at him for a long moment, before sighing. Then she punched him square in the jaw.

The Reinforced blow was enough to send him hurling over the back of the couch, and made it difficult to see anything but blurs as the ringing in his head grew so loud that it was actually making him a bit nauseous.

But even so, he could still hear her words clearly.

"If Emiya Shirou is fated to be blind and lost, then hear my voice and obey. You are Archer. My Servant. You belong to me, to my path! Even if I have to pave it with my own two bloody hands!" She paused as he stared up at her in a mixture of disbelief and pained shock. Then she kneeled by where he was sprawled awkwardly over the floor, and grabbed his aching head in between her hands. "This, is my offer to you."

The silence stretched for a seemingly eternal moment, before he finally realized what she was saying.

She knew that he'd been lost, she knew that he'd followed blindly after eyes that were like sunshine in a rainstorm, she knew that her footprints had faded away long before he reached her, she knew.

And she knew that he would do so again in a heartbeat, because that was his only path.

So she'd declared that she would make another one. Another path, just for him.

It was an impossibility because a voice like honey on steel-... Except, his ears were ringing too loudly to hear much of anything. But eyes like sunshine in a rainstorm-... Except he was too dizzy from a combination of concussion and shock that he could barely perceive the world in color. But skin like a midwinter blaze-... Except the only thing he could feel was nausea and slim fingers digging into his aching jaw. But lips like frost on a summer morning-... Except he was breathing old books and fire, and what was weather anyway?

She stared into his eyes, though he wasn't entirely sure if that's really what was happening because the world was kind of dissolving into static. "My name. Say it." It was a simple order, though it carried a softness to it that shouldn't have made any sense at all.

His mouth opened without thought. "Rin."

Her eyes closed, a slight crease of her brow that he was much too far gone to notice. "Again." Her voice nearly wavered.

And that made this important somehow. Important like a lighthouse in a storm. So he answered with all of the importance that he could muster, with all of what remained from the maddening shroud of shattering glass that thumped with every beat of his heart. "Rin."

Then his back hit the floor again, and she was heavy against his stomach, and his lungs were burning for air that they probably didn't technically need.

And frost on a summer morning could've never tasted so sweet.

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A/n: Ohh, it was nice to write a bit of romance again. Not sure if I even care if I pulled it off or not, it just feels too wonderful to actually write romance again.