king "#1 shitposter" gilgamesh (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
babbylon) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
epidemiology2016-06-14 07:16 pm
babbylon) wrote in epidemiology2016-06-14 07:16 pm
[closed] you're not alone.
CHARACTERS: Gilgamesh and various characters
DATE: throughout the team's stay in Oska
WARNINGS: None anticipated, besides some angst; will update if necessary.
SUMMARY: Gilgamesh has gifts to give! And though he's not really in the mood to do it, give them he shall.
[This is a catch-all for Gilgamesh's purchased gift-giving extravaganza! Individualized starters are below.]
DATE: throughout the team's stay in Oska
WARNINGS: None anticipated, besides some angst; will update if necessary.
SUMMARY: Gilgamesh has gifts to give! And though he's not really in the mood to do it, give them he shall.
[This is a catch-all for Gilgamesh's purchased gift-giving extravaganza! Individualized starters are below.]
no subject
Were my heart not so sick, that I would hold you now, but...
[He doesn't want to touch anyone. He doesn't want to be touched by anyone, which is why his hand pulls fast away from hers even if he knows she'd meant well by it. It wasn't as if he didn't enjoy spending time with Sieglinde, even in this state of mind, but it was becoming harder and harder to pretend he wasn't still broken after losing two of his beloved people in one fell swoop. To plaster on smiles when his inner self only felt like shrinking away.
He doesn't want to tell her, doesn't want her to know, but that same sick heart has started to feel cold again. And after their respite in Oska, when their next mission begins... he may very well return to the likeness of that tyrant, shutting out the world and focused only on his own duties.
Duties beyond ALASTAIR. Duties owed to the planet left behind, nearly forgotten about. What a shame that had been.]
no subject
But there wasn't anything wrong with that kind of pretending. Sometimes you needed to make yourself smile, and laugh, and go through the motions... Lest you forget how. Lest you simply collapse. She didn't react negatively when Gilgamesh pulled his hand away quick enough to bring offense to someone who didn't know, when he spoke of his sick heart. Instead, her expression softened, nodding.]
Then it is is a good thing I am very skilled at treating sickness.
[She stared down at her feet beneath the sheet, now the proper size and basic shape of feet, but held together by splints and injections. She tried to wriggle a toe and only dredged up a dull echo of pain, and so instead she flopped back onto her pillow, gathering up the spell book to clutch in her arms across her check, keeping the new treasure close.]
... Will you tell me a story?
[It was an open invitation. It could be an anything, and so if there was any tale he wished to speak of, for his own sake, even one in his image... It would be fine. But if he wished to hide from that, then he could tell her something completely unrelated and she would not speak up against it at all.]
no subject
Well, he shouldn't wallow. It's inappropriate for one of his distinction. So he sits up, thinks a moment, then nods his agreement.]
Very well.
[It will serve as a distraction, if nothing else, and that's exactly what he needs right now. He settles back and begins his tale, shutting his eyes as if to transport him off to a time and a place far, far away. To the ancient sands of Sumeria, where he ruled as a man rather than as a slave to a higher power.]
As King, I kept many kinds of pets. Birds, and reptiles, and all manner of exotic beasts. But my favorite pet of all was the lion. Golden and noble with a shaggy mane, they reminded me much of myself. I would allow them to wander freely about the palace, as kings in their own right, representing me.
[Speaking of, Shishi comes wandering in from the halls. Gilgamesh chuckles, gives him a pat, and ever so gently directs him to keep Sieglinde company on the bed, curled beside her tiny body and rumbling softly in contentment.]
My favorite among favorites was Sharur, "supreme hunter", majestic even among his own kind. Even Shishi could not begin to compare to his beauty.
no subject
She winced in anticipation for the animals weight shifting the mattress, (and by consequence her feet), but she'd medicated recently and it wasn't so noticeable, pulling a hand from her latest treasure to tentatively reach to place a hand on Shishi's mane, torn between staring reverently at the king of beasts or the king of kings.]
Did Sharur accompany you on your adventures?
no subject
Indeed. He was often at my side, along with Enkidu, braving the wilds or facing down our various foes. He was vicious, and he was tough, but never unduly so. He would spend much of his time in the city, as well, lounging with the children, and enjoying the baths, his greatest luxury.
[He laughs a little to think of it. To remember, and what a rarity that was, pleasant nostalgia as opposed to bitterness.]
I truly believed that animal would outlive us all. And he did live, for quite some time, until one day he fell ill.
no subject
Eventually she gives up clutching her newest book of spells and instead devotes both hands to Shishi as she listens, smiling a little to hear him able to speak of his past in a fond way... Even if it came to a natural end. Well, natural for those creatures of the earth and not the heavens or the hells.]
What happened then?
[But she prompted softly for the answer anyway, enraptured audience of one.]
no subject
[And Gilgamesh hardly sounds pained, or even the slightest bit troubled by it. Gilgamesh was as much a creature as that lion, a primal force more than anything; naturally, he understood the cycle of life, and naturally, he understood all things must come to an end. However...]
One morning, after much suffering and much malaise, Sharur would not awaken. I did my best to rouse him, but it was clear to my eyes that he had passed during the night. I went to dispose of the corpse, when I was stopped—and it was none other than Enkidu that stood in my way.
[If he looks up, if he draws upon his focus, he can almost see him. Almost hear his words, hear his shouting, hear his pleas.]
Enkidu threw himself upon the body, sobbing. And he wept, and he wept, and he wept so profusely, I thought he might never cease. He was devastated, as distressed as I'd ever seen him. I asked, "Why do you mourn? He is not the first; he will not be the last." What do you think he said?
no subject
It could be sad, but it was true.
Her hands continued to strike Shishi's mane, but Sieglinde's gaze was wholly on Gilgamesh now, as if she did not know his story, or Enkidu's, judging it only proper to give him the full attention of a virgin listener if he did her the service of speaking so freely of his life and past, of a friend so newly parted from.]
I do not know- what?
no subject
[Gilgamesh's voice cracks a little, towards the end, from the rawness of the moment. Which he can almost see, almost feel, almost sense, as if his brother were before him once again. As if he'd never been taken from him, then or now. As if he could just teach out and touch him, as real as could be, and know his warmth, as if it never left.
But that was not the case then, and that is not the case now.]
Life is wonderful. What did that even mean? It was a simple sentiment, so much so it shamed me that I could not understand it. I pondered over the matter for weeks. I grew distant. Frustrated. For what had my own life been, but one of apathy towards all around me? Of faraway righteousness?
[Of alienation, part of him whispers, but will never be given voice, so deeply it is buried.]
I did not understand, until I went out for a walk one evening. I happened upon an abandoned cub, a cub that reminded me strikingly of Sharur. It is as if the beast had been reborn. I could hardly believe it. It was so warm, Sieglinde, within my hands, so full of energy. Of that life. I loved it. I cherished it.
[Gilgamesh scoots over to Shishi. Leans down, burying his face in that luxurious mane. Had Gilgamesh really understood? It seemed unlikely. It seemed those words haunted him to this day, fluttering just out of reach. A tyrant was not meant to love; now, more than ever, that had been made apparent to him.]
From the time we enter this world, until we might depart, we must make the most of everything. We must live a beautiful life. Grand, and wonderful.
no subject
It was a beautiful sounding phrase, something that just hearing it, you wished to believe in. That life was wonderful. That it was a thing they were put on the earth to enjoy, to love and live... That it had value, some intrinsic weight no other could deny, or that if ever it were to be so denied while living that there might be some vindication or equalizing balance in some other after place.
Sieglinde's gaze fell to her feet again, and she felt a twinge of guilt, for what she had done with her wonderful life. For how conflicted she felt even now about it, about her masochistic desire to punish herself that made her doubt whether she'd made the right decision, unbinding the proof of her ignorance and sin. Curled slightly in the bed even though it pained her to do anything that moved them, bandaged tight and splinted, around the spellbook, against Shishi's other side, her strokes of the lion's mane just close enough to brush the lion's fur against Gilgamesh's cheek without touching directly herself. The last time she had set out to comfort him, he had been the one to comfort her. How unfair, when she ached largely physically, and he was pained so in the heart.]
... And is it? Wonderful?
[He hasn't actually said it- not clearly in words. He loved things, and had cherished a thing, and determined one must make the most of one's life... But it seems a subtly different thing.
Was it? Rather... Did he find the answer. Could he understand.]
no subject
He has nothing else to offer her. Nothing else to say. The upper half of his body sinks into the sheets, until he's half in the chair and half in the bed. He hides himself in Shishi's fur. His frame shakes as if to sob, but no sound comes out. Life is wonderful, life is wonderful. But how can it be when you are not there?
He wants to go back. He wants to forget his time in ALASTAIR, everything and everyone he'd met. He wants to return to that cold throne, from which he looked down upon the world. He wants to return to the war that he at least knew and understood, to the servitude he'd made his peace with as a king among slaves. He wants to go back and he wants to escape this wretched world where his most beloved things could be seized from in an instant.
Remember when you had everything? he asks himself, but he was the man who had nothing.
He wants to go back, and he wants to sleep, he wants to never, ever wake up. An endless dream from which he'll never leave, but his own words haunt him: every dreamer awakens eventually. He can't escape this madness and he can't escape himself, who laughs, who tells him he deserves this for ever daring to feel at all.
So Gilgamesh breaks, piece by piece, and leaves himself at the mercy of a child he could destroy without a second thought.]
no subject
It was simply a matter of if anyone was there when they broke or not.
But she was there.
She gave him privacy at first, silence, observing softly the lines of his tormented form, listening the sound where sobs perhaps ought to be. Had it only been months ago now that she'd reached a breaking point, marooned on the island of the Dakal, fighting with Kidagakesh, with Koltira, struggling with her own weakness that she couldn't take it any longer, tears spilling out hot and damning on her cheeks, burying her face in the side of who was closest (Loki), even though he'd seemed completely unsure of what to do with someone in that state.
Did she even know what to do?]
... I do believe it is my turn, then. You likely know all the tales I do, so.
[He hadn't wanted her touch and she doesn't press it on him- he has Shishi's warm side, and Sieglinde merely curls up close, ready if needed but in the wings, so to speak, finding a small voice, petting at the lions mane as she began to hum, and the hum became a small song, tentative and inexperienced.].
How the world stands still in twilight's veil, so sweet and snug as a still room...
[He could just listen- or not, but she simply began, low and quiet, having never really sung to anyone before- but it was done in his time, yes? All she knew were the German lullabies she'd grown up with, in the few short years she'd had before she was an adult all too soon and her handmaidens had stopped singing... But perhaps it would do.]
Where the day’s misery you will sleep off and forget.
[It would be generous to call her gifted, but she had the heart for it. At least, for this one, for now.
Sleeping and forgetting, for a little while, didn't sound bad at all.]
no subject
He remembers a voice, soft and soothing, distant in his memories but just close enough that he might replay it in his mind, the sound of a lullaby from the lips of a goddess. His mother, Ninsun, whom he would come to hate on principle for her divine blood, for giving him what he never wanted and never asked for. But even so, even so, there's just something about it... the shape of her face, which he can just barely recall, smiling over him...
His eyes feel heavy all of a sudden. His grip loosens on the sheets. His breathing slows. No, Sieglinde was no expert songstress, but she didn't have to be. She comforts him with nostalgia alone. Takes him to a faraway time and place, that he'd spoken of just now, yet could never imagine, not truly, ever again. He mutters something; it is lost against the bedspread. Shishi, as perceptive as always, tugs him flat with his teeth, so that they make one great pile of warm bodies.
Gilgamesh instinctively curls in on himself, and in this moment, appears more childlike than Sieglinde could ever be.]
I want to go home, I want to go home, I want to go home—
[But there was no home any longer. Not in his memories, nor in reality, as Earth had been his station but never a place of belonging. And that makes him saddest of all.]
no subject
ALASTAIR might be the only home she'd get. Maybe it was the only home they'd all ever get again.]
Do you see the moon standing there? You can only see half of it, but it is so round and beautiful! Such are several things that we laugh at mockingly, because our eyes do not see...
[She continued her song, voice cracking a bit with emotion, her own memories of more innocent times, the way he looked then, so sad and lonely. She couldn't help herself, reaching out a small hand to run through his hair, to lay gently on his head.]
We proud children’s men are poor and vain, and do not know much. We spin spirit’s of the air and look for many arts... And come further from the goal.
[Sometimes it was better to just cry. To just let it all out, to break. No one could strong all the time. Even kings.]
no subject
But there was no such thing as home. Perhaps there never had been. He will not cry, because he cannot cry, but there is so much pain in his expression it could nearly be imagined. He mumbles something else, just for a short while, then I will go, yet it is largely lost to the prevailing tenor of the song. He leans into her fingers, nudging against them with his cheek. He refused contact from nearly all others, but Sieglinde was different. Sieglinde was special.
Sieglinde understood in a way others did not, and loved him just the same.
In no time at all, Gilgamesh drifts off to peaceful sleep. It is not a peace that will last forever, but it will last for just long enough to grant him rest.]