Fate/Recursive Wisdom Teaser (Patreon)

The sound of the front door slamming open echoed. She scrambled off of her bed, slipping and falling off of her mattress, and landed on the floor, butt first.

Could it be, there was really…?

“RIN-CHAN!” a familiar voice called brightly. “I’M HOME!”

An equally familiar feeling of frustration and indignation rose up in Tohsaka Rin, and she snatched up the nearest thing she could grab — a slipper from under her bed — and raced out of her room and down the stairs.

A familiar young man, a boy her age with dark brown hair and bright blue eyes, stood in the entranceway, grinning broadly. The moment she saw him, she tightened her grip on her slipper, wound back her arm, and —

“STOP CALLING ME THAT, DAMN IT! YOU’RE SEVEN MINUTES OLDER, NOT SEVEN YEARS!” 

— threw it at his head with all her might.

Tohsaka Yukio, her older twin brother — fraternal, of course, although they looked similar enough that people might be tempted to think otherwise, no matter how little sense it made — only laughed and ducked his head. He needn’t have bothered, since the slipper missed him by a mile.

“Come now, Rin-chan,” he said, still grinning. “Is that any way to greet your elder brother, who has been gone for over six months?”

“Kuh!” Rin’s eyebrow twitched and her fists clenched — and then, suddenly, she relaxed, released the tension in her shoulders, and offered him a big, bright smile. “You’re right,” she said calmly. “How silly of me. It should have been a knife, not my slipper! Right, Big Brother?”

Rather than flinch, Yukio just laughed again.

“There you are,” he said warmly. “It’s good to see you, Rin. It’s been way too long.”

He dropped his luggage unceremoniously and stepped forward, throwing his arms wide.

“If you try to hug me, I’m disowning you,” she told him flatly. 

And as though she hadn’t spoken at all, he wrapped those arms of his around her shoulders and pulled her against his chest.

Into her ear, he whispered like a sigh, “I’m home.”

Rin let out a long, impatient breath through her nose, rolled her eyes, and then slowly hugged him back. “Welcome home.”

After a long moment, he let her go and stepped backwards to hold her at arm’s length, looking her up and down. Inspecting her. Marking her growth.

“You’re more beautiful every time I see you,” he told her.

Rin rolled her eyes again. “Stop treating me like I’m your daughter. I’m your sister, remember? Saying stuff like that to me is creepy, not sweet.”

Yukio chuckled. “Fair enough.”

Rin stepped back a little more and cocked one hip to the side, regarding him expectantly.

“So? What news from the Association, then?”

Yukio shook his head and gestured behind him to the luggage still sitting outside the open front door. It was not much, only a few meagre supplies that one might take on a short vacation, and how Yukio made that much last six months, she had no idea.

“First, let me get all of this stuff inside, before what little heat this old place has escapes outside. Make some tea while I get it all sorted?”

Rin nodded. “Alright.”

Yukio turned back towards his luggage, and Rin made her way to the kitchen to put the kettle on for tea. While the water heated, she reached into the back of the cabinet for the special tin that she never touched — it was reserved for Yukio, his private stash of Earl Grey, and Rin let him have it; she preferred Eastern teas, anyway.

It said something about him that the tin, enchanted to preserve the freshness of its contents, was one of Yukio’s first successful projects into magecraft.

When the tea was ready and had been steeped for the exact amount of time recommended, she poured it into a teapot — the one from the cheaper china set, rather than the more expensive, almost unused one meant for honored guests — set it on a tray, and grabbed Yukio’s favorite mug. Then, she went back to the drawing room.

“You know,” she began as she entered, “I know we’re not exactly the most traditionally Japanese family to ever live, but if you’re going to flout most of the things we do observe, you could at least have an oriental taste in tea.”

He shot her an amused glance. A smile curved his lips.

“All of the other things I do that probably have our ancestors rolling over in their graves, and that’s the part you find most offensive?”

“I’ve given up on most of the other ones,” she told him as she set the tray down on the coffee table. “I figured I could at least correct your abysmal taste in tea, though.”

“Sorry, but green tea has always been bitter and undrinkable to me,” he said. “Besides, if it wasn’t for me, we wouldn’t even be able to afford loose leaf tea as regularly as we can. I figure our honored ancestors would forgive me much, since I saved us tons of financial trouble. By the way, here.”

He tossed her a package, which she caught. It was a small, brown, nondescript box without any particular markings. 

“What’s this?” 

“Your birthday present,” he told her. He made a gesture with his hand. “Go on. Open it.”

Rin hesitated for a moment, then began to work at the tape that held the box closed. 

“It’s about a month early, but I figured it’s better to give it to you now than to wait.”

What came out of the box was another box, this one black and with a hinge on one end. When she opened this box, it was to find inside a piece of jewelry.

“A necklace?” she asked.

It was made of gold, a chain with a small pendant in the shape of a dolphin. Sparkling from the place where the dolphin’s eye should be was a small, blue sapphire.