[There's a small couch in the corner of the room, so Gilgamesh grabs the book and takes him there rather than the bed—doesn't like the implications of it, and it's messy besides—and sits down. It feels almost childlike, the idea of reading to someone. Like he's with his brother again, like he's home again. He smiles for it, but it's a little sad, a little bitterly nostalgic as he opens the colorful pages.]

I loved to tell stories, too. It was expected of even a King, in my culture, that our legacies were carried through this way.

[And of course, the Epic itself was conveyed first through spoken word before it was written. So to mention bards has him in a mood of pleasant recollection.]

Though admittedly I do not find much opportunity. Servants are creatures of war, not wordsmiths. Like you, I would sooner pick up a spear than sing.