'If the Young Master continues like this, it won't be long before he learns weaponry as well as I do. Twelve, that may not even be his limit.'
'I have trained many soldiers, many of which have gone off to serve Pharaoh, yet none of them bore even an ounce of the Young Dramaour's talent. In a matter of months he has achieved what even I could not, and possesses an insatiable greed for the benefits reaped from training.'
'It is likely that he will become a true battle maniac in the near future. I can see it in his eyes sometimes. In moments where he appears to be lost in thought, his eyes seem to veer away from the present toward something afar.'
'Those are the moments where I see it in his face. In his eyes. In his countenance.'
'I see something more than just mortal. A man that has never felt the sting of true defeat.'
Maximus Decimus' Thoughts As He Washes Off|
"Serkha Finnes, cotton is extremely important now and will be exorbitantly more important to us in the years to come. Considering that, 40 acres will quickly prove insufficient."
Logan was in his study, where he'd spent the majority of his time during recent months. This particular morning, he had woken early to address the queries and complaints of almost three dozen of the more experienced agricultural minds in the region. He worked on sorting their issues out from dawn till midday, and was finally addressing the matter of the very last person.
"The lot of land nearest to the Eky Orchard. Around 200 acres, few slopes for alternative crops- fruit maybe- and good long-term prospects for sustained, successful cotton farming."
Across from him, standing at Logan's desk, was a tall man, striking in appearance, with hollow cheeks. His hair was a mess, long enough to hide his entire face, and his skin was unusually pale for a farmer. His thin lips were pressed together as he thought about what Logan had said, and he eventually nodded in agreement, reaching out for Logan to shake his hand.
"Cotton shall be my primary crop, then. As for trade with the 'unlawfuls,' you can count on me when the time comes."
"Excellent," Logan shook Serkha's hands and handed him a signed sheet of paper. "Lara will see to it that everything goes smoothly with the transport of resources and hired help."
"Well-met, Lord Dramaour."
After that, Logan attended to as many of the less pressing matters that he could, and ending up staying in his study until nightfall. With all the matters of the day settled, Logan sighed and finally left for the day. He wanted badly to wash, have dinner, and be off to bed with his lovely wife.
On his way to do this, he ascended the staircase and could see Angelica's bright white hair through the rails. She was standing on the first floor, just outside of Gilgamesh's room, with her ear to the door.
"Dearest wife," Logan said, trying to empty his voice of all judgement, "what is your beautiful self up to?"
Angelica spastically turned her head around, then placed a finger on her lips to shush him.
She whispered, "I'm trying to figure out what's going on in there, but I don't want to open the door in case I end up disturbing him again. I know he was just being nice last time when he said he wasn't annoyed."
Logan shook his head.
"Good luck with that, dear. I'm in desperate need of a bath and some warm soup. I've asked Omari to have them prepare some of that lentil soup I love."
Logan left her there and went off to curb his body's needs. She continued pressing her ear to the door, listening for anything at all.
There was nothing to hear though.
Gilgamesh was immersed in a world within his own mind, experiencing memories that were buried within it. With each memory he uncovered and re-experienced, he could feel himself becoming more and more whole. He felt like he was growing in size, strength, intelligence and wisdom.
There were times where he felt his underdeveloped body arrive at some kind of limit or threshold, but with the right push he was able to bypass those limitations. Through constant efforts, he forced the body he possessed, the body of a four year-old child, to grow faster than it was supposed to- on a spiritual level.
With each memory, Gilgamesh's spirit, the very essence of himself that had spent eons in Nether-Earth then crossed over from there, was growing. Awakening in him now was the truest expression self-becoming, something that had taken him a lifetime to acquire.
Self-discovery and understanding, knowledge of one's limits, strengths and weaknesses, fears, joys, loves, hates. Everything there was to know about Gilgamesh flooded into him bit by bit. Yet, for every fraction he uncovered there would be ten fractions of memory that would elude him. There seemed no end to them.
He could only grasp those memories one at a time, and there seemed to be hundreds of thousands- perhaps even millions of them. Each of them were distinct parts of his life, entirely different from the rest, yet related.
He was unraveling his own story.
Still, there was one question that he had yet to receive the answer to.
Who exactly was he?
As he scoured memory after memory, he finally came across something that froze him in place.
He saw a young blonde-haired lad standing between two people. To the boy's left was a giant of a man, with mountains of muscle on his arms, and an insanely wide torso. His skin was dark, but his eyes were bright, and the locks of his hair were thick and numerous, falling down his back with a great black beard to match.
He held one of the boy's hand, and along with the other person, would occasionally lift him into the air.
That other person was a woman, equally as tall as her husband but not as mighty. Her features were, for lack of a better word, perfect. She was sculpted by the hand of something more than just divine, and the strands of her hairs resembled strands of precious metal or diamonds, stretched out and pressed into thin shapes.
Her dress, though merely an article of clothing, seemed to be a part of her and matched her splendor completely. She stared down at her son with the warmest of eyes, love practically spilling out of them.
When Gilgamesh saw this scene, he could not react for quite some time. He was speechless, but more than that. He felt, for a brief moment, guilt unlike anything else he had ever felt. He could not believe that he had forgotten them.
"Lugalbanda... Ninsun... Mother and Father..."
As he went through that memory, tears fell from his eyes both spiritually and physically. He woke from it and wiped his eyes, composing himself. It was not his fault that he had forgotten them, so feeling guilty did nothing. He could remember them now. That was that.
"Lugalbanda, Second King of Uruk, distant descendant of the Gods, worshipped as a god. Ninsun, a Goddess of Heaven, who lived amongst mortals and granted them prosperity."
"I am Gilgamesh, the product of their union, two-thirds god, one-third mortal. I ascended the throne of Uruk, and became King after my Father. I ruled the land until the truth of my heritage was revealed to the Gods of Heaven. After that, they set their eyes on me and decided to interfere in my life."
"Judging from other things that I have seen, the many battles I fought were due to those very gods. There is still more for me to uncover, but that much I know for sure."
Gilgamesh thought back to the words of the Twelve, something he did quite often, trying to understand. Now, he could understand. He smiled and looked out of his window, into the night sky.
"Gods sure are ridiculous. What a bunch of impetuous foo-"
Before Gilgamesh could finish that sentence, the night sky exploded to life and blinding pillars of light fell down onto the earth, causing the land to quake just as it had on the day of his naming ceremony. The same voice that he had been thinking about fell from the sky as well, and washed over the land like a hurricane.
"Think long and hard before you continue speaking, Gilgamesh of the Mesopotamians."
He stood up and rushed to the balcony outside his room, flinging both doors open. He could see the source of the light- or sources, since there were twelve of them. Twelve suns lingering in the night sky, filling the world with light far brighter than daylight.
Gilgamesh's silver eyes immediately adjusted with a shimmery sparkle, negating the lights effects. He looked around at the still world, seeing that not a soul had appeared in reaction to this supernatural event. His eyes narrowed, and he immediately understood.
Wherever it was that Gilgamesh was right now, it was somewhere separate from the real world, a space that only he and the Twelve inhabited. Similar to how no one else had felt that world-rending earthquake years ago, no one but him was experiencing the presence of the Twelve.
Again, the cacophonous voice of the Twelve spoke.
"You have not been cleansed of this tainted past you bear. Whatever it is that happened in the Netherworld that unleashed you upon us must be corrected, and when it is we shall come for you. You will return there and continue to serve your eternal sentence. That is your fate, Gilgamesh."
"Do nothing more in our world, for your time is almost at an end. These are the words of We Twelve, and they are absolute."
Once they were finished speaking, the twelve suns in the sky began to depart, preparing to return the world to normal. However, Gilgamesh would not let that happen.
Before he had even reclaimed any of his memories, there was an inborn recalcitrance in him toward the Twelve. His lack of piety toward anything related to gods was like an instinct. It stuck with him, just like his naturally arrogant and haughty demeanor. It wasn't that he was trying to be that way, he just was.
Once again, his eyes flashed with bright silver light, only this time a huge expulsive power flitted through the air toward those twelve suns, coming straight from his eyes. A large part of the Twelve's power that was grasping the world was circumvented, now becoming Gilgamesh's own power, which he used to force the Twelve to stick around.
They did not want to appear in the real world, to be witnessed by any and all mortals present. They thought such a thing was insulting to themselves. It had likely taken them quite a lot of time before they finally decided to appear to Gilgamesh.
Thinking about it that way, Gilgamesh grew annoyed. Terribly annoyed.
"Stick around, you narcissistic fools. We are having a conversation, aren't we? A conversation goes both ways. I allow you to speak, and you hope that I listen; then I speak whenever I choose, and you listen obediently. Do you understand, or do I have to further explain the nature of conversation."
Gilgamesh silver eyes were like blades, emitting a dreadful force that countered the Twelve exactly. In this subset of world, his spiritual power was his greatest asset.
The Twelve realized this as well. His spirit had grown much too fast. Though they would never collectively admit it, they were starting to regret approaching him this way.
"I'll take your dumbfounded silence as a 'yes,' and move on."
Gilgamesh walked to the end of the balcony and climbed over it, sitting down on the bannister.
"I am not some mortal subject of yours to be ordered around and dismissed. If we are to have further conversation in the future, you must correct this. I cannot promise that I will always be in such a... good mood." Gilgamesh folded his leg over the other, looking relaxed and confident.
As for the twelve suns in the sky, they were burning brighter than ever before.
"We are Gods! This world belongs to us! You are nothing! Simply a weak link in a chain that was shattered long ago, and will be shattered again."
Gilgamesh frowned and stood atop the bannister just at those last few words were being said. He raised a finger into the air, wrath plastered across his youthful face.
"Silence!"
Once again, his eyes pulsated with spiritual power that assailed the Twelve, battering the forms of the twelve suns and shaking them to their cores. Though it did not harm them, it was more than enough to shock the Twelve into silence.
"You are gods? This world is yours? So what!?" In all the world, at that moment, not a single power could dare to outshine the aura coming from Gilgamesh's body. The Twelve said nothing, still in awe of the power he had just displayed.
"You do not know me. I realize this now. I will tell you who I am."
"We know who you a-"
"I SAID SILENCE!"
That kingly voice echoed throughout the world, and it cowed even the Twelve. Without even knowing why, they did not dare utter a sound.
"I am the Heir of Lugalbanda, Son of the Banished Goddess Ninsun and King of Uruk. I am he who dared slay divinities. I am the demigod, Gilgamesh, and all of Heaven will fall to me!"