the king of heroes

Enkidu glanced to the side. The unchanging sunlight reflected shades of gold on their dear friend’s hair, and they were struck with a sudden contentment so strong they could hardly speak. “So you think this is what I desire?” They asked, raising an eyebrow. “You must think very highly of yourself.” As he should, though they’d never say so to his face. His ego was big enough as it was. 

“We must have upset someone. If the Throne made any upgrades, I imagine I’d have discovered them by now.” They bumped their shoulder into his, and looked back over the city. It swirled about them like a whirlpool, and settled; the landscape changed, but familiar. There was a forest, half-razed in the distance, and an endless ocean against the sky. They closed their eyes, picking unnamed constellations from their memory. “But you aren’t wrong. It might not be so bad to enjoy it while it lasts.”

“Hah. But this world possesses no god or goddess that can stand against the both of us, so it’s little matter even if that were the case.”

The King smirked as his friend gave him a hard time for his words, but they were only half in jest. It had been millennia since the events that had led up to and claimed their lives had transpired, but he felt the same as he always had toward his friend. There had been much they were forced to endure, both together and on their own. To be granted a dream was the smallest boon that could be given to them.

“Perhaps you are right,” he muttered as he looked down on that familiar image. “It has been a long time since I have seen our home. Sometimes, I fear I may misremember it.”

The more he spoke, the more he reminded her of another blond and not in a good way. 

“Is it not normal to also give your name when first meeting a person?” She questioned, part of her attention on the bar keep, a little wave of her hand indicating that she wanted a refill - orange juice. 

“Honestly, I’m not sure.” She confessed, giving him her full attention once again. “I get a familiar feeling from you, yet I’m not sure what it is exactly.” It could simply be a matter of her missing individuals from her previous life.

“You’re not quite human, are you.” A statement, rather than a question. 

“If I were, I would have long since gone mad with grief. It does bother me, though, that there are so many that do not know the King of Heroes on sight. But I suppose I had given this world far too much credit than was warranted. Such ignorance has been the end of many in the past. But I am in good spirits, so I shall forgive the offense. I am Gilgamesh. Commit the name to your memory.”

With barely a glance, a small portal to the King’s treasury appeared over the bar, slowly releasing a golden pitcher to settle on its surface. As he hardly trusted the staff to do it, he refilled his own glass and set the container back down, pretending to be ignorant of the other patrons who looked at the treasure longingly.

✫   「 If we are to speak of destruction, then the downfall of Upper and Lower Egypt was ordained as soon as I, the true pharaoh, was lost. In the absence of my rule, the reign of any other pharaoh would be imperfect. 」

       𝒲𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑜𝓈𝑒 𝓃𝑜𝓉 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓌𝑜𝓇𝒹𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝒫𝒽𝒶𝓇𝒶𝑜𝒽 𝒪𝓏𝓎𝓂𝒶𝓃𝒹𝒾𝒶𝓈 𝒽𝒾𝓂𝓈𝑒𝓁𝒻? His word is law; declarations that keep the natural order! “Do you mean to say that I must rebel against Ozymandias and cast a light of my own?” How absurd. How easy it must be for him to declare such inanities to her, preaching from his pedestal. “How frustrating…” Knuckles bleach beneath the pressure of tightened skin, voice close to seething. She always hated this man. Why does his greatness allow him to speak of him this way? 

       “How frustrating! I abhor your words and your callousness. I detest the fact that you are not wrong, and I detest that I cannot say anything to object it! How am I to fight my own reality? You… you understand Pharaoh Ozymandias, do you not? Would he not find me too valiant? And discipline me sorely for acting independently?”

“Foolish girl, you are nothing if not contrary. You say you cannot object to my words, yet you blather on over how you hate them. You would dare to call me callous, but you do not move against me. You yourself say that you long for more, but you do not act. And now you stand there, gazing upon me, pleading for answers you already know. But if you wish to hear it, I shall take pity upon you and grant you the truth of your bitter reality.”

@eireiou

Enkidu was a system, and systems did not dream without reason. Their dreams served a function. They were warnings.

They ‘woke’ in a mockery of Gilgamesh’s chambers in his palace in Uruk. There were no shadows, and the horizon (bracketed by an endless mountain range) could have been a day’s or a month’s journey away.

Enkidu’s final dream in life started much the same way, accompanied by an impending feeling of terror. That feeling was not here. They felt nothing but calm. They pushed themselves from the bed, and walked to the window. Dreams like this always featured heavy-handed metaphors for future events. If they were lucky (or perhaps unlucky), maybe they’d see a meteor strike, or a mountain fall.

There were footsteps in the hallway, but they were so familiar that Enkidu did not bother to investigate. “I’ve seen many gods and beasts in my dreams, but I have never seen you. Fortunately, my dreams were always more straight-forward than yours. Are you coming to visit tomorrow?” 

 “That hardly seems worth a dream. It must be something more than that, but to my knowledge we haven’t set out to kill divine construct, or enraged a goddess lately.”

“It’s hard to tell what one comes across in this city day-to-day. It’s possible both of us have cross some supreme being from another world and are none the wiser of it.”

Gilgamesh walked through the halls with a mixed look in his eyes. Even if Enkidu hadn’t spoken of it, he could tell this was a dream. He knew the halls of his home and the walls of Uruk better than most anyone and all of these seemed a bit too perfect. Seeing the familiar walkway was like stepping into a moment frozen in time, a bit of nostalgia that would never go away.

He wasn’t entirely displeased with the notion, especially knowing his companion had something to do with it. But at the same time, something about the situation nettled him and felt like some line had been crossed. He would have to look into the matter more some other time.

For now, he simply went to stand next to his friend and look down at the view of the city that stretched out before them. Fake it may be, but it was one fake he could very nearly accept.

“You always have been the one to force me to face the things I don’t care to think of, Enkidu.”

He went silent after that, turning the stem of his wine glass between his fingers as he stared at its contents. One could easily believe he would leave the question unanswered. He would have preferred it that way. But he also knew his friend deserved more than that.

“Perhaps my legacy would have been very different. It would certainly have been a very different life I led. More boring, if nothing else.”

Some may think of Gilgamesh’s behavior to be utterly cold. At the beginning of their contract Gudao may have agreed, but the King’s case is like any other’s. It takes time for the trust to build, and for the words to be read in a whole different light. The King of Heroes worries for their Masters - that much is easy for Gudao to see now. Even when he seems harsh, cruel, when his words may threaten his Master’s life and those beast-like red eyes of his pierce through the soft blue of Gudao’s, the average and ordinary boy cannot help but feel some warmth coming from those words. 

It has been a long time. Gudao has earned the King of Heroes’ trust and approval. At this point, though he may be much more casual with the man clad in gold and the world itself than in the beginning of their contract, to be seen even for a moment as a disappoint hurts a little more than it would otherwise. Gudao bites down on his lips, and picks up his pace behind the King.

“Are you really allowed to say that?” Even though the one who constantly works himself to death is the Caster version of Gilgamesh, in the end, it’s still Gilgamesh through and through. “Well, the truth is…” More embarrassing to admit out loud to the very King of Heroes than he wished. Gudao looks away, mildly embarrassed, but still mutters up the strength to speak loud enough for the Servant to hear. “Since I have been here for a long time, Christmas came up and, well… A lot of things always happened back in C… Chaldea, and it was hard to give everyone a proper celebration. I may have gotten carried up and bought everyone expensives gifts, and ended up with… a bit… of a debt.”

“B-But! I’m almost done paying it off!” After four months of constant work and more part-time jobs than Gudao would ever be able to do, it only to be expected. “It may be too much, but it’s kind of fun. I mean, it’s my first time doing anything of the kind, and I get to meet a lot of different people. And, the truth is…” He pauses, hesitates for a moment, clenches his hands into fists and finds in himself the strength to confess hidden feelings. “It makes me feel normal, you know? Like a normal human boy, whose only worry is not being late to work, or something…”

“Hmph. Small wonder your situation stems from your soft heart. It shall be the death of you yet.”

The King said nothing of Gudao’s criticism against him and nothing more about his situation. Though he still yet offered plenty of biting retorts of his own, Gilgamesh did have some measure of respect for the young magus. Even while they were within Chaldea’s halls, he would often do the same, working himself feverish for the sake of others. It was foolishness, but well-intentioned.

Perhaps in another time and place, he would have done well as nobility.

“By your words, I assume you accept this mongrel city as it is. Now that you consider your mission completed, you choose to spend your time as any other human would. I cannot find fault in that.”

As much she detested it, should he possess the treasury in its entirety, the challenge was one best withdrawing from. A lost cause with painful awareness from impalement past. Pride, however, voiced protest at such early retreat. The sword of legend, naked from lack of means to coat it, materialized in hand.

“Do you believe I would be so foolish as to face you without weapon to meet one in opposition? Though you might be accustomed to those without their own returned, I assure you that is not the case here”.

The Archer laughed, but not at the words she spoke. It was more at how enamored he felt at her opposition of him, that fierceness and denial of fate that had drawn his attention to begin with. Standing against him, brandishing her cherished weapon, a twinge of excitement ran through him. As much as he chafed at the thought of his powers being sealed as they were, the situation would make for an interesting match.

Albeit a short one, if he had his way.

“You do well not to disappoint me, Saber! I expected no less.”