Beautiful one of Green

That offer was taken with a smile. As low as he was, Kingu showing kindness easily made his heart flutter, made him feel that much lighter. Gilgamesh left a kiss on his knee before he got up, happy to move onto Kingu’s bed beside him. Funny, how his bed smelled…nice. But not clean linen nice, more like hand soaps, neutral scents. He didn’t comment on it. 

That gold chain was in his hand, and he worried it between his fingers, held it close to his chest as he relaxed into the sheets. His red eyes were downcast however, as Kingu laid down with him, his thoughts tracing the grooves on that pointed end just as the tips of his fingers. He knew…He knew Kingu’s feelings on Enkidu were complicated, but it was no use in avoiding their name, and Gilgamesh didn’t want to. It wasn’t right to. 

“I was shown visions….of Enkidu’s death. Several of them.” He sees Kingu’s long green hair as a backdrop to his unfocused gaze. It brings him further into those thoughts. “But I was also given the vision of them alive and well, smiling and fighting side by side like we used to. I tell myself I am at peace with their death, I am at peace with how we spent our lives together. But it still hurts me. It still makes me feel weak.”

His gaze lifts then, looking to Kingu’s face, those beautiful unique eyes of amethyst. One hand holds that chain and the other touches Kingu’s cheek, and he feels as though he’s embracing them both–his two friends. “I desire to be able to be at peace were you to pass as well. This life we’ve been granted together–I cannot foresee how long it might last. Please, allow me to be certain that we enjoy what we can of it.”

Settled in comfortably now, a hand cautiously moves to rest upon the King’s torso. He continued to watch with those vibrantly colored eyes, at attention and with the smallest hints of concern. His other hand was used to prop himself upwards in order to get a better look at his friend, in order to see him eye to eye.

He glanced at the chain in Gil’s hand as he noticed it, only moments before Gil explained what he saw. If one was a close enough observer, they could notice the way that Kingu’s eyes slightly darkened upon hearing the name. It was as if someone had clutched at his windpipe, dropped a pile of stones into his stomach and tied it into a knot all at once. Just a single utterance caused a wrenching in his heart, coupled with the knowledge of the King’s pain.

No. This isn’t about you. This is about Gil.

A voice in the back of his mind snapped him out of it, and he stashed those feelings away within him. Just as Gil had raised a hand to his cheek, Kingu’s own hand went to rest upon Gil’s. His thumb caressed small circles into the skin, shaking his head as he listened. Despite that, a small smile remained on his face.

“There’s nothing wrong with feeling weakness at times, even for the King of Heroes. Surely, you would have learned that by now.” He personally didn’t know how Gil was before the passing of Enkidu; only of what was told by word of mouth and legend. However, he did know that Gil had made a lot of changes; he had grown tremendously. “Whatever Diaidem throws at you, know that you are stronger. It is a pain that will remain in your heart, but never again will it claim you.”

Saying these words... Usually something like that would make him sick, but it was for Gil’s sake.

For who?

Dark eyes were attentive, past the pained weariness they betray. Kingu saw his command seals, and Kirei saw the recognition in those stern violet hues. He knew that could mean only so many things. 

And he obeyed the other. He followed, albeit slowly, as if he struggled to go on due to the pain and blood loss. Were he a man with less fortitude, such may be a reality, but he could go on as he was. The gash was unpleasant, but it wasn’t exactly pouring blood. His sleeve managed to keep him together well enough. 

“I am Father Kotomine,” he introduced himself, voice ragged yet polite. “Forgive me if this seems an odd question. Are you a servant?”

He saw no weapon on him, but that wasn’t strange in this new environment. Trying to deduce just which class he could be seemed useless like this, yet a magus such as himself had to wonder. He had command seals yet no servant, after all. He intended to change that once the opportunity presented himself, and it was good to have options. 

Upon hearing the question, Kingu turned back to face the priest as he walked. With that earlier observation of the seals on his arm, he wasn’t as caught off guard as he normally would have been. Taking a moment to think about it, he turned back away before beginning to speak.

“I wouldn’t consider myself to be a servant. Just a soul in a servant’s body.” He admitted. After all, everything -- from his body to his powers -- belonged to Enkidu. He was merely borrowing it, claiming the clay beast’s remains as his own whether he wanted to or not. “At least, that’s how I think of it.”

Even if he was armed, it wouldn’t be visible to Kirei in that moment. The chains weren’t something that he carried on him, per se, but such a thing didn’t matter now. He didn’t have access to the chains, nor did he know when he would ever get them back. He couldn’t even change his form... Which was irritating, considering how tall this priest as.

As exhausted as Gilgamesh was, Kingu’s attitude never failed to have him laugh. It was a short breath of a laugh, but nonetheless it lightened the weight in his heart, if only a little. He wrapped his arms a little tighter around his friend’s waist, he leaned into that touch in his hair, and he let his shoulders drop as he settled against Kingu. 

“May I be weak, my friend?” It was odd for him to ask permission for anything. “In this rare moment, I feel quite weak. I hope you can keep this between us.”

Hands smoothed over the clothing over Kingu’s back, and he sighed once more. “I reminisce over old times…good and bad, every once in awhile, when I feel I’ve been granted the space to do so. Rarely have I felt them thrust upon me, but they have today. Today, I was incapable of looking away, of dragging my thoughts elsewhere so I could prevent them from overwhelming me…’

“They washed over me, and I feel…cleansed. But drained, as well. I would not say that I am down–I feel as though I have been uplifted, in truth. Like a weight I’ve been carrying for too long as been sent away with a tide of realization and self-reflection. But in this weightlessness, I feel oh so tired…” Another laugh eased from him. “This old body is unused to walking without this weight, I suppose. I may need to take the time to relearn…Will you help me, my friend?”

Sitting and listening, Kingu’s hand absentmindedly ran through Gil’s hair. He didn’t interrupt or ask any questions as the King spoke, only taking in Gil’s woes in silence. He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened; what had caused the prideful King to become so, so tired.

Once prompted, Kingu breathed a sigh, however not one of anger or irritation. He didn’t protest the hands running up his back. He only looked down at him, keeping his voice low and quiet as he spoke.

“You foolish King, speaking only in vague tongues.” The usual insult had a softer tone to it, a certain fondness that was rare to hear from him. “I can’t help you if you don’t tell me exactly what caused this. So, tell me. What happened to you so that those memories were thrust upon you?”

Despite allowing Gil to rest in his lap, he eventually huffed, adjusting himself a little. Even if Gil was as tired as he claimed he was, falling asleep while knelt on the ground would be uncomfortable. 

“Mm, right,” perhaps he wasn’t exactly wrong, but he wasn’t at all accurate, either. However, “better safe than sorry” was a better motive for her to have and people to believe than feeling all but fucking naked without the damned thing around. “Your weapon is an extension of yourself” was a saying used for fighting with it, sure, but she takes it to a new level.

Well, at least Sasume has a pretty damned good excuse for it, anyway—need to feel “safe” aside, she’s sure even here that having a sword respond to your emotions like it actually was a part of you is damned unthinkable.

“Alright, alright,” she relents with a sigh, biting back an even wider smirk and instead even holding up her hand in a gesture of defeat. She wonders how much of his insistence is a sensitive ego, and how much it is just simply being unused to being treated as anything but superior. “Just Kingu it is.”

If it wasn’t for the one in front of her (well, more off to her side, really), Sasume would think such god-awful pride would always make her bare her teeth and spit nothing but venom. However, whether it’s the… almost naive aspect to it, simply how calm Kingu is being about it, or something else she can’t place, she doesn’t mind it, with him.

If nothing else, if only for right now, it’s something fun rather than nerve-grating.

“Not like there aren’t worse things to be called than my own name,” Sasume remarks slyly, looking back to the small plants in front of her. She reaches out with a stray finger again, and dares to hum out: “…Want to sit, Kingu? I won’t bite if you won’t, and standing’s no easier in the cold.”

“Thank you,” Kingu finally backs off some as Sasume declares defeat. It isn’t something that Kingu would have given up on, so he’s relieved that they came to an agreement relatively easily. 

It wasn’t due to an ego or a superiority complex; it was just something that Kingu wasn’t comfortable with. He wasn’t used to close friendships, or just friendships in general. For the longest time, Kingu was merely a weapon, a protector for Gorgon. With the singularity’s grail in his chest, he kept the goddess alive, and he was kept alive in return.

At the offer to sit, he looks at the woman incredulously. Of course, she looks perfectly fine sitting on the ground, so the ground isn’t too frostbitten to be unbearable. However, he isn’t sure as to why she would want him to sit with her. They barely knew each other, and he doesn’t really consider them to be friends.

He stands there for a few seconds, pondering his options. With time, he sighs, relenting, before walking closer to Sasume and plopping himself onto the ground.

“I won’t refuse your hospitality.”

The hot waters were a larger challenge than Gilgamesh was expecting–not that he was going to admit it. Nor would he give any evidence of this, stubborn as he was in his stokes, swimming further and further down until he could touch the bottom of the pool. 

Not so bad for a King from the desert. 

Keeping himself down at the bottom was a different challenge, but lucky enough, his keen eyes would make it a short visit. He caught sight of that comb, down at the bottom just as Kingu had mentioned, and Gilgamesh made no ceremony out of snatching it up so he could return to the surface and fill his lungs with oxygen once more. 

Of course, he was precise in his surfacing. Coming up right by Kingu’s feet, he emerged between his legs, pulling himself up to rest his arms on the other’s thighs as he cheekily stuck the comb in his long green hair, leaving it hanging in the strands. 

“It’s no good to make a King do such menial tasks,” Gilgamesh mused aloud, fixing his own hair now. “If the rewards for this are as pointless as the task itself, I think you should make sure to reward me proper.”

Perhaps, Kingu was more surprised than he thought. It seemed as if Gil had gone underwater one moment and had resurfaced the next. By the time Kingu had snapped out of it, the King had appeared before him, touching his thighs and placing the comb in his hair.

Listening to what Gil had to say, he sat in silence for a moment, as if he was still recovering. His blank expression quickly turned into an unimpressed one, raising a hand to press against the King’s face to push him back. 

“You asked me to help you. No.” Was all he said before he stood up, grabbing his towel. “If you didn’t want the rewards that were listed, you shouldn’t have accepted this ‘menial task’ in the first place.”

Dark eyes feigned more pain than was true. Kirei looked to this odd figure with green hair and the first thing he wondered was if he’d seen him before. There was something there, in that fair visage, that told him there was a connection–a loose string of fate set out by none other than God…

But he knew he hadn’t met him before. How could he forget a palette like that, of green hair and violet eyes?

“Please,” he answered, looking to the other with innocent desperation. Innocent he looked indeed, clinging his tattered sleeve to his wound, his blood staining his fingers red as it trailed through the snow behind him. Shoulders slumped, hair in disarray, he looked like he was attacked in a way that allowed for little retaliation, and he made sure of that perception. 

“May God bless you, child. You are generous.”

Taking a closer look at the man, Kingu could see that the man was wearing a priest’s garb. That explained the way that he was spoken to, with words of God and blessings. It wasn’t something that was all too far off from the faith of the Sumerian people, but it was different enough to him.

He took a moment to examine the priest’s injured arm in an attempt to assess the severity of the wound and the bleeding. While he expected the sight of blood, which was something he saw plenty of, he wasn’t expecting to see the command seals that stretched along the priest’s arm. Despite trying to mask his surprise, he was unable to hide the momentary widening of his eyes before going on to speak.

“I don’t have anything to stop the bleeding on the way there, but I think you’ll be alright. The Warmhouse isn’t too far off.”

Gilgamesh only laughed at Kingu’s insults, and he swatted that hand away from his back with a playful scoff. There was a moment he turned, arms poised to pull himself out of the water, but he stopped right there. His eyes settled on his friend, all of that long wet hair and the wet cloth that clung to his skin.

He stared–gandered. He knew well to appreciate beauty when his gaze settled upon it, and he did not forget this lesson now. He drank it in for several slow passing moments, his eyes focusing on that feminine face, the way his wet hair framed it, the striking violet of his eyes that was beautifully unnatural, and distinctly unique. 

Gilgamesh moved, pulling himself up to sit at the pool’s edge, and in the same smooth motion did he cup Kingu’s cheek and pull him in for a kiss. A moment of temptation and passion, fed into that distinct and unique affection. The kiss was full and generous, and Gilgamesh only broke away once he’d had his fill. 

“My turn.”

And then he was up grabbing the goggles he’d been given from earlier as he stood outside of the pools. He rubbed the rims off with his thumbs, as if they were dirty, before putting them on as he took a few steps away from the waters. 

A turn, and short few steps forward, and he dove right in. 

By this point, Kingu had become used to the playful kind of banter between himself and Gil. From the short time amount of time they spent together in the singularity, paired with the fact that they now shared the same bunkhouse, Gil’s constant presence was something that was becoming a given for him.

Even with Gil’s constant reassurances, there were times where Kingu doubted that the reason for their friendship was anything more than the body that he had taken. Even if Gil had admitted that it was only in the beginning, deep within him he wondered if it was still the case. If he was still just Enkidu, and nothing past that.

It was the deepest of insecurities that tore at him from the inside out, yet he’d never speak a word about it again.

While deep in thought, he almost failed to notice how Gil was staring at him. Quickly snapping out of it, his attempts to cool down were immediately dashed as he felt himself heat up again from those eyes on him.

This damned body.

Just as he was about to order the King to cut it out, Gil pulled himself back up out of the water, stole a kiss, and was gone in a single moment, quicker than he could even process.

“Not really…? I mean, I’d like to spar, but—” her confused blink quickly confused to an almost horrified balk when she finally understands what had prompted the question in the first place. “Wh— No! I just… like to keep it on me, is all.”

Even with it being useless, she absently mourns for the countless time since her arrival here, better her sword as nothing more than a sword than nothing at all. She can be plenty deadly with her bare fists and her standard strength, even prefers hand-to-hand, but only weapons can safely handle other weapons and other threats—and no weapon she’d rather have than her own, even without the sixth-sense connection to it.

All things considered it nonetheless seems far harder to grasp than a simple nickname, and Sasume can’t help how her smirk turns genuine or how she has to repress blatant amusement at the man’s mental flailing.

“Like the apple,” she informs him wryly, dropping her hand and shifting more upright. When he unexpectedly gives his name and and continues with his childlike protests, she feels her smirk grow—cute. “But Kingu it is… Granny Smith.”

She looks away so she won’t lose what composure she has, unable to regret teasing the former-stranger. He sure is something, without a doubt, even if that something is simply fun to tease.

“You can call me Sasume,” she introduces herself instead, unable to help herself as she continues, “I mean, unless you’ve got a nickname of your own for me.”

“You just like keeping it on you.” Kingu echoes, as if to internally solidify that explanation. It seems troublesome to lug such a thing around all day, but at least she’s prepared for any kind of situation. It’s something that Kingu doesn’t have to worry about; his body is the weapon, after all. “Well, that’s fair enough. It doesn’t hurt to go about your day well-equipped for whatever the tundra has to throw at you.”

The smirk infuriates him. He doesn’t take well to teasing; especially from people he’s just met. Kingu straightens himself up some, as if to make himself look taller and assert some kind of authority to combat Sasume’s jests.

“Did you not hear me?” He questions, taking a step towards her. “I asked for you not to call me that. Kingu, or nothing at all.” He may not be the child of Tiamat that he once believed he was, but he still expects respect from others. 

Sasume may know nothing of him or what he has accomplished in his past, but he desired some basic decency. Not to be treated like a child or a childhood friend, and definitely not someone inferior.

Though, seeing the small drops of red in the snow, along with the inevitable feeling of concern from deep within himself, he quickly disregarded that worry and followed the path.

At the end of the trail stood a man with a torn sleeve, his arm bloodied and, in turn, staining the ground below him. The man, wearing the garb of a priest, was much taller than him (and he wouldn’t admit it, but it was somewhat intimidating despite taking down the tower of a goddess that was Tiamat), yet he still found himself approaching.

This once, he would show kindness to a stranger.

(What a fool he was.)

“You’re bleeding,” Kingu said the obvious as he came closer to the stranger. “I know of a place where you can get that stitched up. Shall I take you?”

Eyes wanted to open, but the hot water on his face had Gilgamesh sputtering and coughing, nearly slipping deeper into the pool from being woken so suddenly. He caught himself with his hands at the pool’s edge, pulling his body back up and out of the water until he was sitting beside it. He coughed a few mores times, only to straighten up and run a hand through his damp bangs like nothing had happened at all. 

“I was perfectly fine, Kingu,” he assured his friend, taking to a casual seating position as he wiped the water from his eyes and opened them to peer at the other. There wasn’t much sleepiness left in those red pools now. 

And he caught that bit of worry on Kingu’s face. Through all those insults, he was pleased to see that his friend cared, however stubborn he was at expressing it. 

“Did you manage to find that comb, or is it my turn to have a try?”

As if a moment ago he wasn’t about to drown in his sleep.

Kingu felt no sympathy for Gil as he coughed and sputtered, grumbling to himself again as the King assured that he was alright. That smug smile, revealing that Gil once again saw through him, caused his ears to burn. 

“You can say that all you want. It’s not going to change the fact that deciding to fall asleep in water this deep is probably the stupidest thing you’ve done yet.” Once again, Kingu was unforgiving with his words. “The last thing I need is to think of you as a liability.”

Looking back down into the pool of water, he shook his head. “I can see it down there, but the heat of the water and the pressure from swimming so far down makes it more difficult than I anticipated. I’ll have to give it another try.”

Sighing, he decided to pull himself out of the water as well to momentarily cool himself down. Brushing his wet hair back behind his shoulder, he pressed a hand against Gil’s back, as if threatening to push him back in.

“And I know what I can handle,” Sasume shoots back without any hesitation, brows dropping back down to give a pointedly firm stare. She wonders, briefly, what he —or anyone else, really— expects of her at first glance, not just in demeanor but in past experiences, and she’s quick to usher the thoughts back away.

And walk around in circles to do so, she thinks slyly, but not yet prompted to properly egg him on or challenge him with his relative passiveness—she’s quick to bait (and even quicker to bite, perhaps), but only when the catch seems like it’ll be immediately promising.

“And nature’s good for that,” she says coolly instead, settling for (possibly) calm company over teeth-bared bickering. Fighting of all sorts is more than welcome to her, as she knows too well, but proper peace is far harder to come by here and far more welcome,

With little fanfare she drops down onto the Glassgreen’s floor, and letting her sword do the same next to her, crossing her legs. Sasume hums, propping her cheek on her left hand and idly reaching out to trace a hardier stem with a bare, almost cautious fingertip on her right.

“Yeah, not much else around,” she agrees again, blue gaze lifting back up and away from the plants to look back to the stranger. Another smirk pulls at her lips, but it feels rehearsed and weary even to her. “Like I said, Granny Smith, I know my limits too. I know when I’ll have to leave and leave when I have to. New coat and everything.”

Watching the other unceremoniously plop onto the bitterly frozen ground, Kingu’s eyes travel from her to the sword that was in her hand. His brows raising, he momentarily wonders to himself what such a thing was needed for here, of all places.

“Did you plan on finding something to spar with?” He finally voices his thoughts, gesturing to the sword. Even if they are on the outskirts of Eidolon, Kingu doesn’t exactly believe that there was anything she needs to defend herself from. Perhaps, she could use it to hunt, but going to the Tavern is much easier. Or, perhaps... “Or are you using it as an unconventional way to harvest crops?”

However, that nickname -- or that’s what he supposes it is -- causes him to falter. Granny Smith? Like an apple?

He’s hit with confusion, voicing a perplexed “What?” without thinking. This person barely even knows him, yet here they are, giving him an unnecessary nickname. Crossing his arms with a huff, his confusion is replaced with frustration.