"Alalu had been our last chance," Enki's golden image admitted to whoever found his holographic message in the future. Maybe it would be a human, or maybe even himself. There was just no telling at this early stage, long before Minerva had even constructed the device that allowed them to peer into the future. "Our last chance to avoid civil war.
"Anu sent Anzu, as close a pupil to Alalu as Kingu was to me, to negotiate with him. I went along as a co-advisor, that thought on my mind. Little did I know Anzu's true purpose at the time. Anu had crushed Alalu's revolt on Nibiru after a period of captivity. Now, Alalu had fled here, to Earth, with a ship carrying the warheads I'd given him.
"At first, most of us feared he'd target the volcanoes like he did on Nibiru. It was a futile attempt to thicken the atmosphere following a meteor strike about a century before. When this only made things worse, he tried a second tactic: sending a ship into the asteroid field in the hopes of finding more gold to power the cities' shields. He took every avenue to avoid making demands on Earth, which had caused so much suffering and death. It appears the universe believes only one of us worth saving. Either Nibiru or Earth would be left standing.
"Knowing what they had to do, the Nibirans joined Anu and forced Alalu to flee... toward us. I had little choice in the matter. Anu had already sent an invasion fleet to my home."
There, Enki stopped and wandered listlessly around. "When did I start thinking of this place as home?" He wondered aloud, each footstep becoming increasingly slow and deliberate. "When did I abandon my hope we'd return to the homeworld some day?"
In the back of his mind, he knew. It was after he met Nintu, his wife, and became guardian to a single boy: Kingu. But could he go on record with that, knowing full well it could be used against him? With so many marriages an emotionless affair, theirs was unique. Unlike Ninhursag, Nintu proved less ambitious and focused on the matter of their work. She tried to save lives, Unas particularly, when they came to us injured and dying from work in the mines.
"We could never allow the Ancients to act autonomously. Not if we wanted them to do the same kind of dirty work we made the Unas do." Enki continued in earnest, not wanting to miss out on the point of his recording, which had no doubt been lost somewhere in all this self-reflection from the beginning. "The day we took the Ancients as hosts, we felt more alive on this planet than ever before. But that's neither here nor there.
"Anu's demands of us killed many. Too many. We were on the cusp of revolt, our Unas slaves dwindling, while Nibiru flourished and prospered. Yes, I meant that doubly. We shipped them gold to power the technology Anu and I reverse-engineered from the Arcturian ship that crash-landed on our homeworld over a millennia ago. They ate like kings, while we had so much less to sustain our cities and homes. Then that damn meteor struck Nibiru.
"I knew Anu would make even more demands, so I helped Alalu organize the revolt. When he wasn't able to find a way to reverse the deleterious effects the meteor had on Nibiru, the people there joined Anu and forced him out. So, now we're back at square one...
"Anzu was like a son to Alalu. Maybe not literally, but the boy spent more time studying under Alalu than he did with his own parents. Until Nintu, I never really understood how anyone could expect their own flesh and blood to share the same roof, the same meals... now, I can't imagine a day without them. Alalu left him behind for his own protection when he fled to Earth. As I feared, Anu wanted revenge... and he sent Anzu to get it."
Enki stopped there for a moment, lowering his head as he turned away. "When we were Goa'uld, we didn't think twice about using our families against one another. But ever since we took these scale-less hosts, we've developed a... what's the word?" He looked up, though only to think without continued distress. "These Ancients called it 'caesent'. Conscience.
"Before their ascension, these Ancients lived in flourishing cities with populations in the millions. My people lived in caves as parts of small tribes, always living in fear of our predators... and each other. Now, here we were, trying to change our ways and live like these Ancients did. But so many of us could still remember a time when even the idea of these cities didn't exist. Who could've imagined we'd make it this far?
"None of it could've been accomplished without our children. Igigi, we call them. Watchers. They maintained the facilities where we mined and processed gold, among other materials. Farms, aqueducts, power plants... we stood on the backs of these children like we'd always done. The only difference was that these same children weren't forced to go to war with one another. We were united under one banner, one ruler: 'father' Anu himself.
"So the propaganda goes. He rarely visited Earth, and his 'empire' was split between himself, his master general, and I. For the most part, I ruled Earth when the general went off to war with Alalu. Even then, I didn't want to be known as the god who gave us war. Kingu kept me loyal to my older brother, and Nintu made certain I had a family to worry about. I couldn't care less about the politics until they became impossible to ignore.
"That's why I wasn't happy to see Alalu land on the Great Continent (Africa). Mere days behind him, the fleet under Master General Enlil returned, seemingly ready to wipe him off the face of the map. But Alalu's missiles outnumbered his opponent's ships, fourteen to one. So, Enlil enacted plan B: Anzu.
"Somehow, we gained an audience with Alalu. I'd hoped we'd convince him to stand down. His mission, the one I'd sanctioned, failed. War between Nibiru and Earth was inevitable. Alalu might've wept, but it wasn't the realization that gave him reason to cry. It was Anzu.
"If Anzu failed to convince his foster father to stand down, Anu ordered him to take a kopesh and cut his father off at the neck, killing the Goa'uld symbiote in the process. He tried to put it off, plead with Alalu day after day, but in the end, there was only one choice left.
"I stepped in. Just before Anzu could tearfully catch his father with his back turned, I wrenched the sword out of his grasp and cut into Alalu myself. The man who brought the war to our doorstep turned to me with a look of regret, blood pooling from his mouth. Just before I made the final pull to dislodge the blade from his throat, I saw in his eyes... relief. Relief that it was me who dealt the killing blow, not the boy he'd cared for like his own.
"To this day, Anzu won't forgive me. I don't blame him. I wouldn't forgive me either. My father once ruled as a tyrant far worse than Anu, and I spent so much of my life planning to kill him that I didn't know what to do after. For centuries, I grew more bitter and distrusting of others; so much so that I couldn't live my life. Anzu didn't deserve to go through that.
"But now, every one of his kind - every Igigi - will have to take the life of a parent. All because of the failure of one... and my own inability to face Enlil and end this war before it started."
It never ended. Again, Anu called on Enki for his aid. Although technically in charge of making innovations related to the technology found in both the spacecraft and the I'konian outposts, Enki wondered if he wasn't just some glorified wrench - a tool used to tighten the screws on Anu's hold over the people. Surely that's what all of his inventions had been. What about the inventor, a puppet with strings pulled by his own older brother?
"At least you don't live in the shadows," Kingu reminded him during one of his many visits to the prison beneath the island of Dilmun. It was a prison complex made of a network of mines dug out by the Unas slaves shortly after they arrived. Hearing the screams and lamentations of the prisoners terrified Enki, who could only imagine what the sinister and sadistic overseers did to them. After his capture during Anu's revolt, Kingu must've suffered from similar treatment: a fact evident by the scars that warped his face. "You're not forgotten."
Enki failed to suppress a shiver at those words, though the air in Irkalla was - against all expectations - kept cool... arguably to torture the captive Unas, Kingu included. He'd just finished his story about Anzu and what he had to do to keep a son from murdering his father. This was about the hundredth time he came here to talk with Kingu. In a way, Enki probably sought absolution from the son he'd betrayed. But Kingu would never give it, just as sure as Anu would never change.
"He wants what he can't have." Unas knew they were the backs on which Anu and his predecessor built their empire. Many were revolting nearly every day, and many more fell to Enlil, Anu's former general now turned 'king' of Earth. Soon, Enlil felt it necessary to use the warheads Enki built for Alalu against them. Millions died, some their sons and daughters, sacrificed in the name of order. To Anu, all that mattered was replacing them.
"If I give in," Enki lamented, "I'd be doing a disservice to those who died. Anu and his son would continue to treat our lives as a game. One race of slaves replaced for another."
Kingu couldn't look Enki in the eye, even if the shadows didn't cloak the both of them in such everlasting darkness, the dim glow stemming from Enki's host's skin notwithstanding. His torturers burned out his eye and blinded the other with sulfur. But Enki could already imagine the sort of long, hard stare his old pupil would give him.
"We've found a native creature to act as a template. With genetic resequencing, I can give them a mind capable of taking orders. Our Edenel could keep them docile."
To that, Kingu snorted.
"You don't approve," Enki deduced, but quickly added, "Neither do I." Arms rested on his knees, he lowered his head and tried to sort out his thoughts.
A sense of unease passed between them. Nothing but their heartbeats and slow, methodical breathing echoed through the cave. They didn't have anything else to say. How could they, after nearly seven centuries of conversations? What more could they add? Even after Anu's revolt, Kingu and Enki knew the other so well that few things had to be said. To Kingu, Enki was like the father he never had; and to Enki, Kingu was the son he never had, ever since Tammuz took his own life. Not until his recent marriage, at least - and even that took a lot of effort to reach.
"I don't need your approval." Though Kingu could've thought it was his former tutor who spoke those words, Enki knew who they belonged to. A second light shimmered into existence nearby, far brighter than any Enki could provide. "... or his."
"Enlil," Enki bitterly noted aloud, if only for Kingu's benefit. "I asked for time to speak with Kingu alone."
"You've had enough," Enlil argued. With a flick of his wrist, he summoned two of his soldiers, both cloaked in nigh-invisible armor, to step forward and apprehend the Unas prisoner. Enki stood and would've protested, had a third not appeared, ready to fight the old inventor if he raised even a hand in Kingu's defense. Kingu, for his part, only looked confused and startled. "You said your last words. Now it's time to get to work."
Before Enki could utter a single word in protest, Enlil raised a hand holding an Apple of Eden and commanded his Unas guard. A familiar curved blade emerged out of the shadow behind his former pupil and swiftly dug its claw into his throat. Kingu, nothing like his stoic elders, let out a terrible scream as the guard continued to gut him alive. It wasn't long before Enki could take no more and actively tried to intervene, until the third stopped him with a jab from a pain stick. Caught by surprise, Enki fell to the floor, clutching his stomach, as blood splattered over him from Kingu's writhing corpse.
Finally, the last thing he heard before the darkness fully enveloped him was the cry of Kingu's symbiote, its shrill scream deafening him in its last moments.
Later that day, Enki stood listlessly at the water basin in his bed chamber. He'd spent hours trying to scrub Kingu's blood off his face, staining the water with a permanent crimson hue. As he glared down at his reflection in the unmoving puddle of life, he thought how wrong he'd been. He was a fool. How could he have let this happen?
Nintu, his beloved wife, wanted to console him, and certainly she tried. A meal of his favorite kind of fish sat on the table across from the foot of his bed, and a warm fire kept his otherwise frigid room at a decent temperature. She'd even set the bed, washed his robes and sent their son, Ninurta, to his nephew, Nabu's, temple. He knew she meant well by it. But his outburst when he returned home made it clear he only wanted to be left alone. He'd already destroyed most of his lab, so by the time he arrived home, he kept some civility and left everything standing upright. Nintu didn't deserve to deal with him in this state, however.
Especially when he found himself unintentionally blaming her.
It was wrong, and he knew it. In the back of his mind, Enki wondered if all of this could've been avoided had he never even met Nintu. Had he stayed away from Alalu and allowed history to take its course, he'd have never come to know her - Alalu's daughter. Then, at least, neither Anu nor Enlil would have someone's life to threaten just to get Enki to cooperate. Perhaps then he could be as ruthless as his older brother or the general. Maybe he'd even led Earth to victory in the likely war with Nibiru, damn the consequences.
But that's all they were. What ifs. Hopes best left in the past where they belong. Part of him wished he could go back. Erase the last few centuries. Stop himself from telling Anu that the only way to make a feral species like those hominids into anything resembling the Unas, they'd have to use a freshly deceased subject with a Goa'uld symbiote. They needed as many strains of DNA as they could get from a single, core victim to build an entire species' gene pool. The Goa'uld symbiote provided the adaptable protein sequences required to further mutate the DNA into variable forms, each imbued with their unique form of consciousness.
For the first time in his life, Enki didn't merely despise Anu or Enlil. He despised his entire species. Whereas Ancients viewed life through a form of open consciousness that made them more amenable to ascension, Goa'uld saw life as a prisoner trapped within a shell. Not even being in control of the host wrested this reality away. As far as the Goa'uld were concerned, the body was separate from the mind. To an Ancient, they were one and the same.
To avoid their new slaves ascending, the Goa'uld would tether their consciousness in the harsh waters of reality. Enki had to make sure of it, lest they cause more trouble than they were worth. And they were worth more than gold, as far as he was concerned. They were all that remained of Kingu. A lasting legacy to the Anunnaki's fall into depravity:
Adapa and Ena. Progenitors of a new age.