Good evening.

[Arthur’s voice resonates clear and level across the voice communication. With no means of disguising herself, Arthur doesn't dare use the video setting-- though it takes a bit more tampering with the device than Arthur is comfortable with. She ought to know how this works, after all.]

...My name is Artorius Pendraig.

I don’t know by what force I have been brought here, nor where this location is. Should anyone know and care to share the whereabouts of this location as well as by what means, it would be much appreciated.

[She is not so naïve as to expect that whatever force has brought her here will let her free easily by any means. All she knows for sure is that she is not here by the force of the Throne of Heroes, nor is any master present, and this is more than worrying.

It's almost terrifying.]

When Arthur slept, she dreamt. Most servants didn't share the so-called luxury-- though she supposed that in Ruby City, they all must dream again. It was not a dream she awakened from that morning but a nightmare, though she supposed they must both share a common form.

She didn't move from the bed, for once, where she lay flat on her back like the dead. There was no war to attend to, no grail to fight for. Arthur felt stripped of everything, truly, and laying on her side, she listened to the drumming of raindrops on the window pane absently as she contemplated.

How could it be that her efforts would be for naught? The thought troubled her; the destiny she assumed herself set for had been turned over and denied. She was not the king she thought herself destined to be, and had suddenly become a captive of some strange city beyond the reaches of her Earth. The weight of it pressed on her heart, one that was not a copy or phantasm but wholly present in Ruby City.

She was not the king she'd thought herself to be and, so long as she was here, would never obtain the grail-- and according to the words of others, might never obtain it at all. A king without a throne, a knight without a kingdom to defend, and it was fitting; Arthur had never truly understood what it meant to be king, after all. Had never understood people, the way they felt. Had saved them, but had never led them.

If she were going to continue to be alive, King or not, Arthur was going to remedy this mistake.

Getting to her feet, Arthur shed the emotional veil of her mourning and slipped herself into the fitted suit she had obtained, tied her hair back low, and lifted the pocket watch from the desk.

She had heard many refer to Ruby City as a prison, and many residents held it in disdain. As Arthur left the flat she'd claimed, however, she couldn't help but feel that a hopefully temporary stay in a world without a Grail War was nothing but a blessing.