Week 2 story: The Summoning of Pygmalion.

Pygmalion and his statue by Ernest Normand.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

“Please begin the summoning procedure when ready, young Magus.” Said the instructor.

This is my first time summoning a Heroic Spirit, so I’m excited to see which one will become my servant. After taking a few moments to calm down, I begin the summoning procedure. After saying the final verse of the summoning, a sudden bright light flashed from the summing circle. This momentarily blinded me. Once my eye recovered, I could see my servant standing there. A beautiful young woman who had features as fine and delicate as that of a statue. I was so stunned at the sight that I forgot to speak. Seeing this, my servant smiled and spoke:

“Greetings master. I am caster class servant Pygmalion, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Wait ………. Pygmalion? I thought Pygmalion was a guy!

I recall that the legend of Pygmalion was about how an artist named Pygmalion carved a statue of his ideal woman and then fell in love with it. The legend went on to state that the Goddess Venus decided to grant Pygmalion’s wish for a bride that resembled his lovely statue, and turned the statue into a human. But the Pygmalion standing before me is a woman!

As I’m racking my brain trying to understand what’s going on, I hear my instructor speak to my servant:

“This is quite interesting. I have heard of Heroic Spirits being summoned in a form that reflects their ideal. Am I to presume this is the case?”

In response, my servant said:

“Yes, that is correct. I have taken the form of my most beloved.”

Okay, I guess that makes sense. Having final calmed down, I say to my servant:

“So, you are the Heroic Spirit of Pygmalion who has taken on the form of you wife correct?”

Pygmalion Looks to me and says:

“That is only partial correct. I am Pygmalion and have taken the form of my beloved, but I was never married.”

A bit confused by this statement, I ask my servant:

“Did you not marry the statue you created after she became human?”

Pygmalion frowns upon hearing my question and answers with:

“My beloved never became human so I never wedded her. However, I did spend the rest of my days gently caring for her as if she were.”

I respond by saying:

“Then how did you have your child, Paphos, whom the city on the island of Cyprus is named after?”

My servant then says:

“I never had a child. Perhaps the people of Cyprus needed a reason for calling the city Paphos and decided to alter my legend.”

I’m not quite sure how to respond to this revelation. Regardless, Pygmalion is now my servant and I’m his/her? Master. I can only guess at what kind of strange events await me in the future. I finish this conversation by smiling and saying:

“Is that so? Well it doesn’t really matter. I look forward to working with you, Pygmalion.”

Pygmalion also smiles and says:

“Likewise. I won’t let you down, Master.

Authors Notes:

I provided a brief description of the original story in my story, so I don't really have anything to add to that. In regards to my changes, I set the story up as if Pygmalion was summoned as a heroic spirit in the same fashion as the Fate/Stay Night franchise. This is probably the approach I'm going to take for my weekly storytelling's since I have a lot of fun thinking in terms of what these legendary figures would be like as servants. Anyways, I thought it would be fun to have Pygmalion appear as his statue since that's not something you would be expecting. In addition, I thought it would be interesting if the statue never became human. I wanted this to give the impression that Pygmalion may not have been sound in mind and only believed the statue was alive. 

Bibliography. "Pygmalion" from The Metamorphoses by Ovid and translated by Tony Kline. Web Source.