Ride With the Hunters

The winds howl around him like a thousand beasts, snarling, prowling, nipping at any exposed skin with ice-cold teeth. Goredolf shudders beneath his coat, pulling it closer to his body.

"Is anyone out there?" He yells at the top of his lungs. He can barely hear himself above the storm. "Anyone at all?"

The only response he gets is a faraway thunder.

Alright. Fine. That's fine! He's Goredolf Music. He can handle some cold on his own (on his own?) all he needs to do is to keep walking forward, and he'll end up somewhere eventually (where?)

The thunder gets louder. Is it getting closer? Ah shit, the only thing worse than being lost among cold winds would be to be lost among cold winds while wet. Goredolf speeds up, seeking to outrun the incoming rain.

The thunder keeps getting closer though, like hooves hammering against the ground. Goredolf winces, bracing himself to get hit by water-

It wasn’t the thunder.

A dark figure bolts in his field of vision. A monster; no, a dragon; no, a horse. It towers above him with the all-compassing presence of the night sky. A knight sits on its back, covered in something that might be armor or might be scales.

“… Hello?”

Wordlessly, the knight extends a hand.

They’re quite scary, all clad in black, horns crowning their head. But they don’t seem hostile so far, and just as Goredolf has learned a pretty face isn’t always trustworthy, a scary one is not always to be feared.

The knight yanks him up, tearing a manly yelp out of him. They easily lift him up to set him right behind them. Goredolf opens his mouth to protest- but then the mount starts running, and all he can do is hold onto the knight for his dear life.

The world turns to a blur. The horse runs like the north wind itself- for a second, Goredolf even wonders if they might be flying. It outruns the lightning, the rain, the storm itself- until, eventually, it slows down and stops under clear skies.

“You should be alright now.” They- she? The voice seems feminine- tell him. “Can you get down on your own?”

“I- yes, of course.” He responds, and then immediately contradicts himself by almost falling on his ass. The knight grabs him by the hips before he can tumble down, then she gets down herself to set him down. This is the most embarrassed Goredolf has ever felt.

“… thank you.” His cheeks are burning red. He has never felt more mortified in his life.

The knight doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she reaches up, then lifts her helmet off her face, revealing-

Oh.

This is the face of Goredolf’s (friend? Girlfriend? Fuckbudy?) Or, well, this is a Saberface- this specific body type is far from X-exclusive. Which means that she is, most likely, a servant.

“Apologies.” She bows her head. “It was I who brought the storm here. I did not expect it to disturb your sleep.”

Ah. He gets it now.

This is a dream.

“Who are you?” he should probably get that jotted down first thing- friend or foe, ally or enemy, a name will be a big clue to that end.

A spear suddenly materializes in the servant’s hand. For a second, Goredolf is afraid he deeply offended her, but all she does is stab the weapon into the ground.

“Servant Lancer, Artoria Pendragon Alter. King of the Wild Hunt.”

King of the what.

Alright. Alright. This is fine. Goredolf has seen plenty of servants with impressive legends do the stupidest shit imaginable. He shouldn’t let himself be impressed by some grand title or another. “Well, I thank you for freeing me from that storm, Lancer. Though I would appreciate if it didn’t happen again.”

“It will.” Ah. Well okay then. “Master’s dreams are already filled with too many people. The least I can do is try to not add onto their load myself.”

So she’s coming to him instead. “Have you considered… not haunting people’s dreams?”

Lancer shakes her head. “That is not possible for me.”

Is it him, or is getting explanations from this woman like pulling teeth? “Why not?”

“I am a liminal being by nature. I’m an if of an if, a person who was never supposed to exist. I am the Artoria who chose what she should have never been able to choose. I am the butterfly who dreamt he was a man. I can seldom exist outside of dreams. Reality will not accept me.”

“… This doesn’t really make sense.” He replies.

“It doesn’t.” She agrees. “But that doesn’t make it any less true.”

She reaches down, and then, with no explanation whatsoever, ruffles his hair.

“It appears that you are about to wake up, and I must ride on anyway.” She turns around and gets back on her mount. “I will see you again. Take care, boy.”

Goredolf opens his mouth, blood rushing up his cheeks, and-

Finds himself laying on his back in his bed.

For a few seconds, he stares at the ceiling, mind racing. Then, very slowly, he looks down at himself.

Throbbing boner. Of course. She just had to call him boy in a mildly condescending way, didn’t she. Curse his thing for dangerous women who vaguely look down on him.

Something shifts next to him, then the Mysterious (And very Sexy) Heroine X pokes her head out of the covers, looking at him with tired eyes. “Is it morning yet.”

“N-no, it’s fine. I just had a dream. Go back to sleep.”

X looks at him, blinks, turns her head, and looks at the tent in the covers. “Must have been a good dream.”

Scratch that, this is the most mortified Goredolf has ever been in his life. “It’s not like that! It’s just- there was this woman-”

“Uh-huh.”

“She had your face!”

“I’m flattered.”

“She was a servant!”

That catches X’s attention. She frowns at him, thinking. “… Was she a Saber?”

“No. A Lancer.”

“Ah. Okay.” And just like that, her attention is lost. She crawls back under the sheets, until her ahoge is the only thing left poking out. “This can wait until tomorrow then. Goodnight.”

She is… right, he supposes. Goredolf closes his eyes, steadying his breathing. There’s nothing he can do about it at five in the morning. This can wait.

X’s voice rises one last time, so quiet Goredolf barely hears: “she can have your nights, by the way. So long as I can have you during the day, I don’t mind.”