Saber's true name is
Peleus. Descending from a royal line through one parentage and the grandchild of Zeus through another, Peleus was raised in luxury and folly. It was here that he was forced to learn of the world. Foolish mistakes led to pointless deaths, and so he fled city after city, falling into guilt over his own mistakes. However, he grew, he learned, and so as the years went on, he was gradually forged into a hero. He adventured with the Argonauts, who he valued as treasured friends, alongside his brother.
He married a woman and with her had a daughter, but the marriage was not fated for happiness. Another woman, scorned by Peleus, engineered the suicide of his wife, and sought to bring about the death of Peleus himself.
She failed. And here, Peleus knew rage. Here, for the first and last time in his life, he felt genuine, pure enmity for another living being. Something in him broke at that moment.
Reason fell away. Communication fell away. Identity fell away. The divine blessings he held were made to go berserk, and degenerated. A bottomless cup called hate poured out. On that day, he was not Peleus, but an armored berserker, a beast who sought to utterly eradicate the target of his hatred.
...he does not speak of this day, and it seems that he wishes to leave it behind, for obvious reasons.
One day, it was prophesied that the sea nymph Thetis, who Zeus had long pined for, would bear a child who far surpassed the strength of the father. Realizing this, Zeus sealed away his affections, and instead sought out the ideal candidate for her sire among mortals. Here, he found Peleus, and so for the first time since the dawn of man, the gods directly descended to Earth to speak with men. Peleus became the cornerstone of divine attention, the eyes of the pantheon fixed on him, for he unknowingly stood at the edge of that cliff called prophecy.
Peleus and Thetis met, and through sheer persistence, Peleus courted her. The two were married, and once more, the gods descended for Peleus, celebrating in raucous joy for the crisis that Peleus had unknowingly prevented, and heaping gift upon gift upon him. While the actions of a certain goddess soured that day, it was of little consequence to Peleus himself, and so life went on. Peleus and Thetis went on to bear a child, and life was kind.
It was one night, though, where he discovered the secret that had been kept from him. Thetis and his child stood in the center of a magic circle he could not describe, the air thick with the True Ether of godhead. Fire burned at that child, but he did not scream in pain.
It was, he realized, a ritual to raise their child into a god, to make him an undying existence. Eternal, exalted, standing above all. He should have felt excitement, he knew, but there was nothing of the sort there. His eyes, in that moment, did not meet those of Thetis, but those of that young infant, and he saw something there. Was it apprehension, unease, or simply the same fire that Peleus himself had? He could not explain what it was, but something propelled him forwards, something told him that, for that child’s case, he could not allow the ritual to complete. His body moved before he had realized what he was doing, lashing out to stop her, confiscating that divinity and replacing it with humanity.
The ritual was interrupted, the anointing of godhood had been tainted, and the child would be forever mortal. In a rage, Thetis departed, never to return.
He was left with that child, a young boy, who he raised. He taught him of the world, of gods and men, but above all else, what that child took to were the stories Peleus told of his bygone days.
And so, under those stars, he spoke of heroes. Of Heracles, who stood above all, a source of awe and an insurmountable mountain. Of Atalanta, the beautiful huntress with the strength to treat hardships as if they were nothing. Of the great leader who amassed countless heroes, of he who conquered the Labyrinth and wept for a lost child, of the great trainer of heroes that he would one day meet, of the Myrmidon people who called him king.
When the time came, and that child stood ready to become a hero, Peleus passed down his ‘everything’. Weapons, mounts, wings. Legacies inherited from the gods, titles forged by men, all things Peleus had collected through the years were passed down to the one who he loved most in all the world. That great trainer of heroes was pulled from hiatus at his behest; for that child, who wished to be a hero, Peleus did not hesitate.
He gave that child every opportunity he could, because he knew, the two of them were the same. The same sort of fool, charging headlong into the horizon. He saw his child off to war, holding him in his arms for the last time.
...so then, did he weep, when that child died so young?
Did he regret his actions, for letting that child be mortal?
Did he curse himself? Did he curse the world? Did he face it all with that same, foolhardy smile?
“You did well, ■■■■■■■■. I’m proud of you.”
That is not spoken of in legend.
Only the man himself knows.