gilgamés—enkidu of the wilds
Chapter Summary;
"Why is it so then,
I and my cousin Mālik,
whenever I come close
he draws away?
He blames me
and I don't know why,
the way Qurt ibn Aʿbad
disparaged me in front of them all.
He made me despair
of every favor I asked
and bury every hope of it
as if in a deep grave.
All this for no fault
I committed other than
asking assistance for Maʿbad
in gathering his lost herd.
I had hope in our kinship
and, by your fortune,
I am one to persevere
till the very end."
—Ṭarafah ibn al-ʿAbd
Notes;
Line break text comes from Tablets I and II of the Sumerian/Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh.
MAJOR SPOILERS FOR AC MIRAGE.
TW: brief allusion to thoughts of suicidal ideation, mild/brief gore
"He knew neither people nor settled living,
but wore a garment like Sumukan."
"Allow me to make one thing very clear; shapeshifting does not exist."
Looking up briefly from where he'd been rummaging in the fridge for a yogurt, Shaun silently leveled the large black-and-gray wolf currently balancing on its hind legs to lean against the island countertop across from him with a look of heavy skepticism.
Next to it, there was a subtle flicker in the air, like a heat shimmer in the height of summer, and then Nehal stepped into view, sliding into the seat next to her… twin? Mirror world self? Host?
Shaun twitched slightly at the unnerving visual oddity and then shrugged as his brain gave up trying to reconcile her sudden appearance with reality. Whatever.
Shaun grimaced. The statement was technically correct. They'd been over this already.
Attempting to ask why they could also interact with Nehal had, surprisingly, netted them the world's longest infodump of unintelligible technical jargon that had had Rebecca frantically lunging over the couch for Shaun's notebook and pencil, shouting, "WAIT! WAIT! YOU CAN'T JUST START SAYING THINGS LIKE THAT—"
Later, somewhat miffed, she told Shaun that it had essentially boiled down to "holograms with extra steps."
The extra steps being "harnessing the universal tendency of mankind to believe what they were seeing was, in fact, real, in order to casually warp reality."
Which was not terrifying in the slightest.
Basim and Nehal's respective reassuring and comforting qualifiers of "Only slightly." and "You know, like an Apple." were not in the LEAST bit comforting. Or reassuring.
Bill, of course, was only interested in whether or not it could be used against Abstergo, because of fucking course he was only interested in that, and not, you know, the fact that the Sage was even capable of such a thing to begin with.
Apparently only Shaun and Becs thought that this was technology that was, you know, even slightly concerning to have in the hands of a guy whose biggest contributions to multiple mythologies were;
A. Inventing The Concept Of Lying
and
B. Causing The Apocalypse.
Still… After having heard Layla's reports on the illegal experiments that had supposedly taken place in Atlantis, Shaun still couldn't help but feel …weirdly disappointed by the explanation?
Or relieved. It was one of the two, he was sure.
Or terrified. One of the three.
Shaun let go of the fridge door, letting it swing closed with a loud thump on its own as he turned and set his yogurt on the counter with perhaps more force than necessary.
"Yeah?" he said at last, retrieving a spoon from the drawer. Fine. He would entertain… wherever this conversation was going. Or maybe… "...Because it's all illusions, right?"
"Holograms." Basim said sharply, as he abandoned the pretense of the hologram all together, immediately taking the bait.
"I mean, it's pretty much a distinction without difference at this point, isn't it?" Shaun said, pulling the foil tab back on his yogurt. "Isu technology is already so complicated, might as well call it magic."
He absolutely did not really think that, but the absolutely outraged [Basim] and flummoxed [Nehal] look on the Sage's face(s?) was as good a source of entertainment as anything else.
"Like, your people were basically…" Shaun paused, and then grinned, already deciding to continue poking their resident apex predator with a metaphorical stick. "...space wizards."
Rebecca snorted, having immediately gotten the reference.
God, did he miss Desmond.
"No-"
"Look at yourself, mate." Shaun didn't let them get a word in edgewise, continuing on. "Ability to conjure illusions at will-"
"Holograms."
"Illusions!" Becs chipped in from across the room, not even looking up from her computer screen. Shaun snorted.
"—ornate ritualistically acquired glowing markings that give you powers, teleportation—" Shaun looked up, meeting first Basim and then Nehal's eyes deliberately. "Shapeshifting—"
"Holograms again." Basim ground out, with a facial expression like he was trying to set Shaun on fire with his mind.
Nehal, meanwhile, looked ecstatic, like this was the most fun she'd had all day.
Shaun rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Illusions, right. Clairvoyance, telepathy, owns a magical staff of untold powers—that grants its owner functional immortality—with the spirit of your long-lost lover soul-trapped inside to boot—"
"That… is not AT ALL how that works."
"Sure, whatever. But anyways—"
"It is NOT magic—?"
"I mean, face it, Basim, you're basically a necromancer—"
"NO!?"
"He ate grasses with the gazelles,
and jostled at the watering hole with the animals;
as with animals, his thirst was slaked with (mere) water."
Nehal was staring at him.
"...Yes, Nehal? What?"
She continued to loom over Shaun's makeshift workspace at the kitchen island in silence, staring at him.
Shaun sighed. Okay. Fine. Whatever. "...Did you actually need something, or were you just trying to practice your… ability to… I don't know? Spontaneously kill people with your mind or … something?"
He was just about to dismiss her presence as simply yet another of the Sage's many weird attempts to psyche out his handlers for his own amusement, when, suddenly;
"The recordings." She said, abruptly.
"...The ones from—from …2012." she said, her voice hitching unexpectedly on '2012' as some unidentifiable expression flitted across her face, too fast for Shaun to name before it was gone again. "That you uploaded for Layla."
"...Yes?" Shaun said, and then, when she remained silent; "...What about them?"
"...You implied in your message to Layla that there were more."
"Yesssssss?" He said, eyeing her skeptically.
Dear God, why was every single conversation he got dragged into with them either a nonstop info-dump or like pulling teeth—
"...There were. Why—"
"—Do you still have them?" She interrupted, giving Shaun another glimpse of that strange, intense—desperation, it was desperation—expression from earlier, before she seemed to realize she had broken character and betrayed exactly how interested she was.
What? Shaun blinked, and then exchanged a startled, confused glance with Rebecca across the cabin. She shrugged, nodded towards the couch where Basim was sitting, and then snatched up her phone and began typing.
Shaun cast a skeptical glance towards the man, but he was still reading the same book he had been earlier, seemingly refusing to engage with the conversation.
…What in the hell could they possibly want with the rest of the GT recordings?
His phone chirped and, with a grimace and a quick glance up at Nehal—who pointedly looked away with the polite, somewhat awkward air of someone who knew they were being talked about—Shaun looked down.
Becs:
hes been staring at the same page for over twenty minutes
Shaun frowned.
interested, then?
Becs;
Yeah definitely
Its both of them
Not just nehal being weird again or w/e
shaun…
Y tf do they want the des recordings
Haven't the faintest idea
The inner workings of their mind are an enigma
Becs:
They /have/ been listening to the ones on laylas laptop a lot lately
Caught them looking real emo about something while listening to the 2nd 1 last week
Bas got real defensive when i asked
blamed it on allergies
But
Dude for sure looked like he'd been crying
Felt bad for him so i didnt mention it
Huh. that's… weird
What do you think, becs?
Should we let them have the rest?
Becs:
I…I don't know
Those are like…
Its /des, yknow?
All that we have left of him
Becs:
Letting some… Isu sage mess around with them feels…
wrong
Like
idk
Like disrespect to the dead?
Becs:
Yeah
Like. hes not aita.
The staff entity (probably) isnt juno
But.
It just feels.
Weird.
Yeah.
So that's a no then?
Becs:
I…
Yeah.
If we knew why they were so interested
or you know, what their goals EVEN ARE now
then, maybe…?
But, yeah, for now
that's a no from me
Alright.
Better prepare yourself for retaliation
Or …something
They seem awfully keen
I get the feeling our local apex predator isn't going to be very happy with this answer
Shaun set his phone down with a sigh, massaging at his temples with one hand, and then looked back up at Nehal.
She was fidgeting with that Norse cloak pin of Basim's again, a lost, unguarded, and surprisingly vulnerable expression on her face as she absently ran her thumb over the medallion's engraved surface.
Could she even feel any of it? he wondered. If she could, then what kind of horrifying questions did that raise about their definitions of 'personhood' and 'reality'? If she couldn't, then what was even the point in the motion—just a clever mimicry of human body language? A self-soothing urge she'd learned from watching her… 'other self', now being uselessly imitated in a vain attempt at self-regulation?
They still weren't quite clear on what, exactly, Nehal was, only an increasingly irate list of what she was not ["—no, she is not 'a manifestation of my past life as Loki.'", "no, she is not my twin sister", "no, she is not 'some kind of fucked up biodigital tulpa.'","no, she is not a symptom of some form of Isu proto-Bleeding Effect'" ,"no, she is not an expression of repressed 'ancient alien gender dysphoria'"—though those last two had gotten a raised eyebrow and a lengthy, considering silence respectively—] and that she and Basim were frustratingly attached at the hip and—as a bonus!—seemed to possess the exact same fucking annoying personality.
Because one morally ambiguous ancient alien trickster god doing their dead level best to drive Shaun into an early grave out of sheer irritation simply wasn't enough.
Their responses of "We are NOT separate." and "She is my second self." were as frustratingly vague as everything else they'd managed to get out of the Sage.
Shaun still had his bet on "some kind of Isu mental illness," personally. Even discounting the… inherent brain… weirdness that likely came from being a Sage, the man was, frankly, horrifically traumatized to a degree that Shaun hadn't seen since Clay. Or—Or Desmond, for that matter.
…There was absolutely no way this man was anything but totally deranged, and he probably very desperately needed access to a licensed psychiatrist. And a therapist.
…Actually, they ALL probably needed that.
Pity the Brotherhood seemingly 'could not possibly afford that.'
Maybe! Shaun thought. Maybe, Bill, if you had spent less money on liquor and paid more attention to your remaining Assassin cells instead of arbitrarily cutting them off whenever something went wrong, maybe, just maybe, we wouldn't BE in this situation.
If Bill hadn't decided to recruit Layla—and then parked her, and thus, Shaun and Becs, as the woman's glorified babysitters, in a safehouse right across from the Grand Temple, as though that didn't matter at all—they probably wouldn't be in this situation.
If Bill had just turned back when Desmond decided he would be the one to save the world, or refused to leave the Temple, or… anything at all, really, other than leaving his only son to die alon-
Well.
They probably wouldn't be in this situation.
…Yeah.
They all needed a good therapist.
…A really, really bloody fucking amazing therapist.
So! Basically, they were all collectively never, ever going to process any of their traumas until the day they died, because Shaun knew the chances of finding one were about as good as discovering that dragons were actually real, or something.
"Nehal." He said, gently. He would never admit it, but he did feel… bad about having to give them this answer. That terribly desperate look in Nehal's eyes…
…Yeah. Fuck. Alright. He pitied them.
(God dammit. Not again. Why did this end up happening every. single. time. that Shaun got stuck on babysitting duty for Bill's latest shiny new ticking time bomb of a living weapon?)
So… yeah, he felt sorry for them.
Not enough to change the answer he was going to give them, of course. He would never disrespect Desmond's… memory like that. (Especially, some traitorous part of him whispered, if there was even a chance that he might actually still be alive to—He shut down that train of thought.)
He would feel bad about it later, though.
She startled, slipping the pin away into some pocket or another, and then turned to him with a pensive expression on her face.
Across the room, Basim shifted slightly in his position on the couch, the slight tilt of his head away from the book he was still making a pretense at reading for some reason the only outward indication of his shared interest in the outcome of this conversation.
"...We do still have them, yes." Shaun forced himself to ignore the glimpse of hope he caught in her eyes. "...But—"
Her expression shuttered. Basim huffed and turned his head to stare out the window, no longer even bothering to pretend that he was interested in his reading material.
"They're… private, unfortunately." he said, rubbing at the back of his neck self-consciously. "Our… friend—Desmond, the one in those recordings—you are aware that he—that he… died shortly after making them, aren't you?"
"Yes." Basim ground out, finally joining the conversation, voice a biting growl of badly suppressed rage in sharp contrast to Nehal's hushed, stricken; "We are."
Shaun's phone made a quiet ding! in the background. He ignored it.
"That—" Bewildered and caught off guard by the intensity of their response—even though he'd predicted they wouldn't like it, the sheer immediacy and emotional weight behind their responses still threw him off—Shaun stuttered slightly, "—That means that those recordings are… well. They're all we have left of him, you know?"
Nehal nodded, her eyes wide, shrinking back from the counter a little and hugging her arms defensively across her chest.
"And given the circumstances of—The circumstances surrounding his …death. We feel like it would be… disrespectful to his memory to—"
"-Because we were once Isu." Basim spat the word 'Isu' out like it was a curse as he stood from the couch, snapping the book shut with an audible snarl as he turned and fixed Shaun with a stare of such predatory killing intent that, for several seconds, Shaun was convinced the other man would be crossing the room in the next few milliseconds and… ripping his throat out like a wild animal or—or… something.
"I—well. Not—Not exactly—" Shaun fumbled.
Nehal looked quietly stricken for a moment, and then a dark look of rage passed over her face.
"Uni!" she hissed, at the same time that Basim scoffed in disdain and barked out a muttered "Wolf." full of reproach and bitter self-loathing. And then they were gone, storming out the door before Shaun could attempt any further damage control.
Shaun exchanged a helpless glance with Rebecca, who shook her head at him in bewilderment before leaning forward and looking out the window searchingly. After a moment, she frowned and picked up her phone again.
Shaun's phone dinged again and, with one last concerned glance at the door, he picked up his phone as well.
Unread
Becs;
Woahhhhh
Wtf?
Becs;
…aaaaannnd they're gone.
Don't see them
Tracker says theyre still on property though
Hm
Shaun blinked.
Wait
What
Since when do you have a tracker on them Becs?
And why?
Becs;
Bill, duh.
he's been paranoid about 'losing assets' ever since galina's team lost elijah
That tracks, yeah.
The archivist's defection probably didn't help on that front either.
How in the world did you manage to get it on them without their noticing?
Becs;
I didn't lol
They know
Got them to agree to carrying it
in exchange for that latest awful shirt bas has been wearing
…the airbrushed kelpie one? Eugh. why, becs.
Why would you further subject us to this man's awful fashion taste.
Becs;
Are you kidding lmao.
Thats the easiest bribe ive had to do for asset cooperation, ever.
I'd take a million shitty novelty t-shirts over some of the other things we've had to procure, any day.
But yeah. They're still here, somewhere.
Probably hopped the fence to the promontory again.
they do that a lot.
The one just off the deck?
…Didn't eivor build a cairn there once?
Becs;
Idk. youre the historian.
why r you asking me
…They were also building a cairn there last time tho.
So theres that
Huh.
Something something 'Sages and their crippling rockhound addictions,' or whatever
Becs;
LMAO
…u werent kidding abt their reaction
He was PISSED
Yeah
Becs:
nehals was weird too
…why did they care about des' death that much
Also
Oooni?
Uni
Juno, i think
Etruscan pantheon
Older version of her name
Becs:
Oh yeah.
hm.
Were they really just. super offended by the implications of comparing them to juno/aita or something?
I… maybe?
Becs:
Bas did also drop the.
um.
W-word?
….w-word
Becs:
I mean
Idk
it feels weird even /typing/ it now.
Like.
That's just messed up man.
why would…?
...oh.
shit.
I guess that did come out
sort of …wrong, didn't it.
Becs:
I mean. Yeah
You could have phrased that better
…It was super weird though
They specifically didn't get upset until you brought up desmond
…yeah.
Becs:
I know we say this every day but
What the HELL
is their PROBLEM?
"There is a certain fellow who has come from the mountains-
he is the mightiest in the land,
his strength is as mighty as the meteorite(?) of Anu!"
He continually goes over the mountains,
he continually jostles at the watering place with the animals,
he continually plants his feet opposite the watering place.
I was afraid, so I did not go up to him."
"...We are going hunting." Basim announced some time later.
Shaun groaned.
Evidently the Sage had gotten tired of endlessly tearing apart Rebecca's spare desktop and reconfiguring it in new and increasingly distressingly ways—(what black magic… Isu fuckery the Sage had worked in order to force the computer to work without a motherboard Shaun did not know and did not want to find out)—when he thought she wasn't looking; when Shaun looked up, the fucking… Dog Of Unusual Size was back to leaning on the counter across from him again, not even trying to look as though he hadn't just been attempting to steal the remains of Shaun's half-empty yogurt.
So pettiness was the order of the day.
….Alright then.
From across the cabin, Becs shot him The Look that Shaun had quickly come to term the "'It's Always Fucking Something With This Guy.' Glare."
'Hunting.' Great. Shaun absolutely did not understand what their problem was. It wasn't like the fridge wasn't kept stocked with food, or anything. And actually good food at that—Shaun refused to be stuck …here AND be subjected to endless nights of takeout.
Thankfully, the Brotherhood was not cheap in that regard, at least.
[For all his faults, Bill at least would not let them starve, he knew this.]
The last time those two had gone 'hunting', Shaun had had the delightful experience of coming across the remains of a white tailed deer strung about high in the branches of a tree like some sort of bizarre, macabre Christmas tree tinsel while on his way to the outhouse at some ungodly predawn hour of the morning the next day.
[They were, of course, free to hunt, provided that they were mindful.]
Later investigation had yielded no evidence of any kind of fire being made in the firepit the night before, and the pans in the kitchen were exactly where they'd been placed after lunch the day prior, still sparkling clean—which had all sorts of implications that Shaun was still trying very, very hard NOT to think about.
[And yet…]
At least it had been a respectable, sane, safe distance from the cabin. Shaun was in no way eager to invite any kind of carnivorous predator into their safehouse.
[At least, not any additional ones.]
[The one they had was already concerning enough. Shaun did not need to add 'bears' to the list of things he needed to worry about.]
[And yet.]
Whatever.
"Alright. Fine. Sure. But you're. uhm. Kind of. A w-" Shaun winced, remembering their conversation the day before regarding Isu era slang. It had been… most enlightening. And mortifying.
[And somewhat chilling, if he was completely honest, given the nature of well. Norse mythology's not-insignificant repertoire of "Famous Wolves Slaughtered And/Or Imprisoned And/Or Enslaved By Odin."]
[And how many of those "Wolves" were related to Loki, in one way or another.]
[Shaun's subsequent attempt to ask about the Fenris-Wulf had been met with a smile and a grit-teeth "What. Do. You. Think. It. Meant."]
[It was not a nice smile.]
"A wwwild. Dog? Right now."
Rebecca just groaned. "Really? Don't encourage them."
Beside Nehal, the abnormally large wolfcanine tilted its head to the side in a slow, deliberate movement, bared its teeth in an uncanny facial expression that unsettlingly resembled a smug grin far too much for a canine facial structure, and leaned forward, claws audibly and pointedly scraping across the countertop, ears swiveling forward as it stared intently at Shaun.
Shaun exhaled through his nose. The foil lid of the yogurt container scraped noisily on the countertop as it haltingly inched its way towards the other side of the island. Shaun looked up at the ceiling and decided to graciously ignore it.
Being annoying is not a crime worthy of death. He reminded himself. Being annoying is not a crime worthy of death. Claws clicked on the counter. And that is not threatening. At all. Also, he looks like a moron.
"Not sure if you knew that." He tacked on, somewhat sarcastically.
Nehal grinned at him. The yogurt container slid over the edge of the counter and hit the floor.
"...You can have that." Shaun said pointedly.
"Dude. Ew." Becs frowned. "Really?"
"Food is food." The Sage muttered, voices blending together until Shaun wasn't sure which one of them had spoken first.
[Idly, he wondered if, buried somewhere in that eerie doubled overlap, might be the original vocal register and timbre of the Isu whose memories the Sage had inherited.]
"...You …are a fucking anomaly, man. You better not have spilled that. And get off the counter." Rebecca said after several seconds of uncomfortable silence, ignoring for a moment that the animal before them was allegedly nothing more than an overly complicated holographic illusion. "That's gross." she muttered.
It was the principle of the thing.
Nehal leaned down and snatched the yogurt container off the floor. Shaun made a face and then slid the spoon across the counter to her, almost morbidly curious to see what she would do with it.
One ear flicked in acknowledgement of Becs as the Sage considered Shaun's earlier statement. Nehal slouched forward to rest her chin in her hand, watching the exchange with a similar look of vaguely smug amusement, fidgeting with the spoon in her other hand, obviously pleased with herself.
After a long moment of silence, the supposedly-not-actually-a-wolfcanis lupus lupus acquiesced, backing away from the counter and dropping back down to all fours.
"Yes." it announced as it slunk around the corner of the kitchen island, heading for the door.
"Care to elaborate on that?"
"No."
"Are you just messing with us again? Nehal? Is he just messing with us again?"
When he turned back, Nehal had vanished from her seat at the counter as well.
"What the hell is their problem?" Rebecca muttered.
"...My yogurt." Shaun complained.
"But when he turned his attention to his animals,
the gazelles saw Enkidu and darted off,
the wild animals distanced themselves from his body."
This is great. We are going to get SUCH a good grade in Being Friends. Something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve—
I regret letting you have access to the Internet, Nehal.
Besides. No. We are not.
There is a thing called 'sarcasm,' Basim. But yes.
…The Historian does not like us.
Neither of them like us, Nehal.
Shock-ing. Have you maybe considered NOT randomly pestering the Historian until the red tinge of his aura suggests he would likely cry tears of joy if we spontaneously combusted?
Or stealing his yogurt? Or 'improving' the technician's machines?
He was done with it. And the motherboard was totally unnecessary for efficiency. It was an improvement.
Also. Me? ME? Do not pretend to be innocent in this. I am not the one rearranging all his database files—
Same. Mind!
Ugh.
… Actually.
It isn't that the Historian does not like us.
Oh? It does not seem that way to me.
It is more so that he does not like how we make him feel.
Hmm.
He is uncomfortable around us.
Yes.
On edge.
We can be…unnerving.
He pities us. And he does not like it.
His aura becomes…complicated.
And…
And?
…The Temple.
Ah. You think they do not like us because we remind them of—of Fenr—of their… friend?
Yes. Or the …loss of him at least, yes.
Juno. Curse her and her broken-minded-weak-willed-murderer of a husband both! First our home, then our happiness and now our—our Heir—
…Always they steal our kin's every shred of joy!
Yes. That our plan already bears uncanny semblance to the one enacted by Juno certainly does us little favor.
…A-And—
No. It is not the node, Basim. It is not. We are—
We are free. We are free. Our trade-sire's greatest work—his gift, his miracle—is now also ours.
Time cannot puppet us anymore. We have stepped beyond his reach. We are free.
And yet recent events would say otherwise.
The girl was a necessary evil, Basim.
We were all trapped—-Aletheia inside that…box, us… within the Grey, even Layla—by her own hubris if nothing else.
…First you insist that we are free, then you insist it was not our fault because we were trapped.
Which is it, Nehal?
Both. Neither.
The Calculations we worked from—outdated.
A mere glimpse, stolen fragments. Of a timeline from before Juno's defection from the Triad.
A variable we could not possibly account for, even if we had wished—we were working entirely from a prior dataset.
…Yes.
Sigurd and Eivor. They trapped us. Turned off the machine.
Another variable.
Yes. And… Hytham…
We were not meant to be alone. And by the time we were awake—
It was already too late.
Yes. We could not warn Aletheia of the increase in radiation within the chamber, She could not communicate to us in full the scope of our plan's failure, Layla… well. The girl had already proven that she would not listen, anyways.
Still. The anomalies. Our message.
Pre-recorded. Planned. Long in advance.
Not meant for her. We did not know. We expected our Heir.
We could have—we could have found a way, Nehal.
With what reason? Our Heir would have the Staff in hand—and our blood besides.
Layla chose to stay, in case you are forgetting. We did nothing to manipulate her. She merely chose to continue meddling in a plan not meant for her.
Excuses? Really?
She was warned. She was told that it was not meant for her, and still she persisted in that… violation.
Precious memories not meant for her eyes. She was not our Heir, but she. knew. better—
And so that merited her fate?
WE DID NOT KNOW!
…Neither did Roshan.
Who we once were. What the 'temple' our clan held so sacred truly was.
…Does that absolve her of what she did?
That was different. She was our wish-dam, our kin—
…We thought the girl to be our kin too, Nehal.
If it bothers you so much, then take a Shroud and go retrieve her.
…
Not so simple, is it?
The morals of a falcon, Basim.
ṇ zṃchmṇrch. This "Mentor" of theirs.
He does not own us.
We are not trapped here. We are simply ...choosing to stay.
Oh? You really think so? Then why not leave?
...
A pit, Basim. You seek it out.
"Enkidu was as one bound by cord; his utterly depleted body,
his knees that wanted to go off with his animals went rigid;
Enkidu was diminished, his running was not as before."
"Mentor?"
Hytham squinted up into the dark of the tree's canopy, struggling to make out his mentor's form among the shadows in the rapidly darkening twilight.
"Little eagle." Basim greeted, a long stretch of morose silence lingering between his words. "You have wandered far from our companions' campfire."
His back was turned to Hytham, but he could just barely make out the pale silver-blue flash of that familiar dagger in his mentor's hand. It seemed to almost glow where the light caught the naked blade.
Next to him, carcass draped awkwardly over the tree branch, lay a large doe, throat neatly slashed.
[His mentor's hunt had evidently been successful.]
[Then why would he...?]
[And how had...?]
"You said you were going hunting. You've been gone a while. The others worried."
[You only took a dagger. You went hunting as the sun fell. We have never been in this forest before.]
"And so I have." Basim replied, gesturing at the deer.
"Worried?" He scoffed. "And so they sent a Novice - alone, into an unfamiliar forest, at night - to find me?"
The disdain and irritation seething in his master's voice might have offended Hytham, once, were he not now also wise to the notes of protective outrage hidden in it.
Hytham shrugged. "You are my mentor."
[Evidently they needn't have worried at all. Not for him anyways. About him? Because of him? …Perhaps.]
"...Yes." Basim said after a moment, sounding surprisingly chastened. "Yes. That is… true." The admission sounded almost, strangely, guilty.
The dagger flashed suddenly, twisting in his mentor's hands, arcing downwards towards the carcass beside him, looking for all the world like a fang in the mouth of some great beast about to close its jaws upon its prey.
The strange curved blade sank to the hilt in the doe's side with a wet thud, and the body jerked on the branch at the sudden impact, the motion almost giving the momentary, horrifying impression that the poor creature was still alive.
The eerie stillness of its placid expression and the total silence of the motion quickly dispelled that illusion, however.
[A slashed throat… that would not have been a swift nor easy death. The poor thing would have struggled, surely. Yet his mentor appeared totally unharmed - even his robes remained as unblemished as ever.]
Hytham watched as a trickle of blood ran down the doe's face, past large, vacant eyes. A few droplets of blood fell from above to land with a soft pattering against the leaf strewn forest floor.
He suppressed the urge to shudder.
[When he said he planned to go hunting, they had all assumed he meant to set snares for rabbits, or to go fishing. But …a deer? …with a dagger? …alone? …in the dark?]
"...Why are you in the tree?" He asked at last, finally unable to withstand the curiosity burning inside him.
[A slashed throat would have been difficult to achieve even if he'd first struck the animal down with bow and arrow in broad daylight before approaching. And that angle… had he struck from above?]
His mentor remained silent for a moment.
Hytham frowned up at him.
[Why drag the kill back up with him? Perhaps a predator of some sorts? But surely it would have been wiser to call for help, or else leave the doe behind?]
Hytham felt foolish even as he gave voice to his line of thought.
"...Was there a wolf?" He asked.
Basim barked out a startled laugh. "A wolf?"
His mentor's voice softened from a snarling growl of badly concealed irritation, to a near whisper, humming with a bitter note of faint amusement.
"Aye. There was a wolf. But it is gone now."
Hytham did his best to quash the sudden thrill of fear that lanced through him like a lightening bolt. Despite his mentor's strangely serene ambivalence to their presence, even a singular beast bold enough to stalk this close to their camp was no small matter.
Basim turned to face him, shifting in his position on the branch so that the weak light from the rising moon fell partway across his face in dappled patches where it streamed from beneath the dense, leafy canopy. His golden eyes caught the light and almost seemed to glow white-hot, and, though his mouth remained in shadow, Hytham could hear the soft smile in his voice.
"You needn't worry, little eagle." he soothed, as though he had reached down into Hytham's mind and read his thoughts as easily as one might pluck a scroll from a shelf. "You are quite safe, ya azizi. There is nothing in these woods to fear for you."
[Clearly, Hytham still had much to learn in the art of the kill. Not for nothing was Basim considered foremost among his peers.]
"...Or for myself." Once again anticipating Hytham's thoughts before he could give them voice, Basim snorted, his voice full of fond amusement as he waved the hand not occupied by the dagger in a gesture of clear dismissal. "Your concern is endearing, but unnecessary. Go, return to our brothers' fire. I will not be long."
When his mentor at last came stalking into camp some time later with his prize draped over his shoulders, Hytham was so relieved that at first he did not notice anything odd.
It was only until after his mentor had dropped the doe at their brethren's feet and settled near Hytham on a small rock, watching with a contented look of disinterest as their brothers set about the business of preparing their overdue supper that he realized the doe was, strangely, already missing an entire hindquarter.
He turned to Basim, mystified, a question on his lips.
His mentor held a finger to his lips in a shushing motion, and then bared his teeth in a sly, savage grin.
"Even wolves need their share." was all he said, snorting softly with sudden mirth as though he had just made a clever joke that only he understood.
It would not occur to Hytham until much, much later, after the long passing of the years, to wonder at the fact that—for all his quiet mother-henning—his mentor had never actually joined them in their supper that night.
Instead, he had simply sat and looked on quietly, seemingly content to watch as Hytham and the other acolytes devoured their portions with a small, strangely sad smile on his face.
The woman, Shamhat, spoke to Enkidu, saying:
"You are beautiful, Enkidu, you are become like a god.
Why do you gallop around the wilderness with the wild beasts?"
The wind keened softly as it wound its way through the upper branches of the forest canopy above his head, and Basim shuddered, pulling his cloak and borrowed furs closer about his shoulders.
[Ironically, despite what the Norse might have said in their stories and songs and sagas, they had never dealt very well with the cold. Much of their first life had been spent in the sun-soaked Mediterranean climate of Atlantis and the ancient shores of the Aegean; their brief time among the Tuathé De as the Triad's agent, and then their many years stationed in Asgard as Feyan's diplomatic ambassador had been full of abject misery for them, unused to such frigid climes as they were—even the brief thaw of an Asgardian summer had been nigh unbearable.]
[Even now, though the winters in Alamut had been far from mild, they still found that they were as unprepared now for even the more temperate climate of England as they had been then. Suffice to say, they still harbored a deep loathing for the majority of the Aesir's broad swath of former holdings, the Saxons' lands included.]
They had settled in the heights of a tree some distance away from Ravensthorpe—far enough past the tree-line that it was unlikely that any hapless member of that clan would find them in the—admittedly unlikely—event that one of them should venture out into the falling twilight, but not so far that they could not keep a watchful, guarding eye upon the distant silhouette of their Bureau and their youngest trade-child within it, aura shimmering a comforting and familiar protective gold-washed blue of kin-looked-for-guarded-thought-of as he went about his duties.
They had done so not out of fear or any great amount of paranoia, but rather simply out of a desire to avoid the company of others as thoroughly as possible. They were not in the mood for idle chatter and even less so to explain why they had chosen to sequester themselves here instead of their Bureau or the Hall.
It makes sense. When you think about it. Nehal murmured.
What?
Us. This. Your nightmares… the jinni.
The fondness you hold for Hawwāh's clan and their wayward descendants, despite how poorly you are treated among them.
I am useful among them, Nehal. And we are far from treated poorly.
Is that all there is to strive for? To be useful? You are at the bottom of a deep, black pit, ya sadeeqi.
Every hand extended to you will seem a kindness. And you latch on far too tightly.
That is …not true.
Oh? Is it? Then why are you not by the fire, in the longhouse? Why do we prefer the woods and the wilds to the safety and peace of our bureau?
That is not why we stay with the Hidden Ones. You know that. Vali, Narfi, little Şeth—
"No one? Not even Hytham?" "Parents, brothers, all dead."
LIAR.
No! We failed them. Hawwāh… we owe her this much.
Hawwāh. Why should we owe Eve anything?
Because she—
Because she freed us from that nest-of-punishment, knowing how vulnerable we would be? How broken?
To use it against us? To turn our half-mad pain and grief and rage into a weapon for her brotherhood?
Not because we were her kin-by-trade, but because we might be useful to her cause? Because we were oath-and-debt-bound to aid her?
As penance for the loss of her sons, our sister-sons?
Vali-called-Cain, Narfi-called-Abel.
We promised to protect them as though they were our own. Our little ones, our children-by-trade.
Is this then our punishment?
Even this life she has laid claim to. Eight-and-one lives for our own.
"The Havi and his chosen kin must die a second death. Deny them every chance at happiness."
…Can we have nothing that is ours and ours alone?
…She at least was honest. She did not pretend with us.
And that's supposed to make it alright? Supposed to make her any different from any other person we've ever loved—
What are you talking about-
Prometheus. Hawwāh. Minerva. The Morrigan. Sigyn. Havi. Alamut's council. Their mentor. Even your master—
Roshan was nothing like that pathetic one-eyed-wretch, Nehal!
…And Mentor Rayhan is a human fool, not a monster. Promethe—no, Phanes. How can you place him with the likes of the Havi? He did nothing to hurt us. …Will you next add Is'haq to this list, Nehal?
Nothing? It is his fault we are even here, Basim!
Phanes bound us to his clan, made us his chosen kin, knowing full well how that would doom any chance of happiness. To his daughter. To Hawwāh. To her war. To this endless, pointless struggle.
As her elder, we would be expected to be her protector. Guardian. Guide.
He knew that.
And still, he sacrificed our future for his Heir.
You are wrong, Nehal.
And Roshan? Still you defend her? She tried to kill us, Basim.
Let us struggle. Let us suffer. Alone.
Because we were more useful that way.
No better than Eve. No better than Havi.
SHE IS KIN, NEHAL—
So was Hawwāh. So was the Havi.
…
As for Rayhan… He is a tiresome, two-faced snake.
Praise from one side, distrust from the other. Like Minerva. Secret dealings in the dark.
Only valuable so long as we are useful.
What happens when we no longer fit the council's version of that definition?
Already they mistrust us.
Rebekah. Tabid. Naaji. Fuladh. The Banu Musa. Azar. Ammon.
Roshan and Rayhan do not comprise the whole of our clan.
And where are they, eh? Why did we have only Rayhan's spy to choose as our sole companion on this journey?
Hytham is our chosen kin, our wish-son, our child-of-trade, Nehal.
He is our chosen kin now. But you know as well as I do that he still reports to Rayhan.
And we had already decided that this did not matter.
Yes, and yet.
How long since any of them last deigned to speak with us? How long since they sought our company? How long since they called us to join them at their fires?
…How wide is the gulf between you now?
Even when you were promoted to Den Master and assigned to Constantinople in ceremony in Alamut, Basim. Even then you were alone.
…No. Not alone, Nehal. Never alone. Not again.
Because of what? Me? Ah, yes, because the illusionary voice of your second self makes for such sane company.
You do realize we share the same brain? The same neural pathways and chemistry and genetics and mental disorders and—
Nehal…
—What is wrong with you is also wrong with me, ya sadeeqi.
And there IS something very, very wrong with you.
Nehal.
And they know it, too. Your clan. Your Hidden Ones.
They do not trust us. You hear the whispers. See the reports.
It is like being back in Hawwāh's camp. Like serving as the Triad's spy.
Nehal.
Will we be abandoned to a fate worse than death when the risk of rescue runs counter to their plans, again, as the Triad did?
Faithfully we served The Voice, yet when we pled to be released from our assignment in the Havi's court, she chose silence.
They could have recalled us as ambassador. Nothing we had done, either as spy or diplomat, had ever yielded any fruit worthy of keeping us in danger any longer.
It was never that dire.
It was not our fault.
It was well within their power.
…Minerva… She betrayed Hawwāh too, in the end, Nehal.
Yes—
But not without reason. The Methods, the Temple. The Triad. Juno's expulsion.
You cannot fault her for looking to her own.
Yet we were to be punished for daring to do the same?
…You know why, Nehal.
Because we were wolves?!
So our blood being mixed made our lives worth less?
The lives of our children? Our beloved? Our sister? Our nephews?
They steal our inheritance and forbid us from it as 'too high an honor beyond our reach' all-the-while parading around their mewling weak-blooded Heir as starspawn-kin—yet condemn us and our kin to a fate worse than death for a crime we had not even committed yet—and still you say "You know why." and "You cannot fault them."
As though we were the ones who had done wrong.
Nehal, I…
A pit, Basim. You are used to it.
…
…No.
Worse.
You seek it out.
…
But it isn't your fault. We can't help it, after all. We cannot be as other than we are. All this was fated. All this will happe-
Nehal. Stop it.
What else could you do? To be so alone… to feel connections between kin intertwined so deeply be cut off so suddenly, to feel the pain and sorrow and grief and rage and not even know what it meant.
Nehal. St-
It would be more than anyone could bear.
Let alone a child of six, almost seven winters.
You were desperate. Scared. Alone. In the cold and the dark. Telling yourself stories. Dreams of a better future.
Only a child.
…Yes.
…Like Fenri—
Nehal! Stop it. Stop. Please. We don't—
…He was only seven winters old when the Havi first took him from us.
Nehal, please—
Only seventeen when they mutilated him. Us. Our entire clan.
Disfigured. Disabled. Violated.
They carved him from our mind. Tore our bonds out by the roots.
Shattered our sense-of-self into pieces-
Nehal this isn't helping—
With that dagger. The one we found in the oasis cache. The one we carry on our belt, even now.
As soon as we touched the disk, saw the Order's plans, even without our memories, we went and sought it out. Dug it up.
Because we were so afraid—
Please—
Terrified, by even the faintest possibility that someone would be able to do that to us again—
Nehal—
And now we can't let go of it—
Stop it!
Hveðrungr, these northmen call us. "The Roarer." Do you remember why—
Please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop—
Because we would not stop screaming. For him.
Make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop—
Havi tired of that eventually.
Had Ivaldi sew our mouth shu—
stop stop stop stop PLEASE—
We were so hungry. So starved, that when Hawwāh released us we would eat anything they gave us.
Scraps of cooked meat and cast off bone. We could barely hunt.
Our voice was nearly gone from disuse. We could barely force ourselves to speak.
When we were even coherent among the pain.
PLEASE STOP PLEASE STOP PLEASE STOP—
And they laughed. Hawwah's human kin. They thought it was funny.
To see how base and lesser we had been made.
Finally one of their tormentors had been humiliated.
Not so high and mighty were the Isu now.
Nevermind that we had always been first among their allies.
Nevermind that we were Hawwāh's kin.
Nevermind that our children, our little ones—!
Our
little
ones—
STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP—
We couldn't even recognize our children when they stood next to us.
Couldn't feel them when they reached out to us.
Couldn't hear the tones of their minds when they spoke to us. Couldn't sense them.
Forced to rely upon our lesser five. Like a wild animal—
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE—
WE COULDN'T EVEN COMFORT FENRIR AS HE DIED.
HE WAS ONLY TWENTY SIX. NOT EVEN FULLY GROWN.
HE HAD DONE NOTHING WRONG.
OUR OWN HEART, OUR OWN HEIR—
ENOUGH!
LET
ME
OUT—
"Come, Enkidu, let me bring you into Uruk-Haven,
to the Holy Temple, the residence of Anu and Ishtar,
the place of Gilgamesh, who is wise to perfection,
but who struts his power over the people like a wild bull."
…
…
…Basim? I—
…THAT WAS CRUEL, NEHAL.
Why? Why do this?
What brought this on?
What is the point?
…
NEHAL!
…Did we really mean it?
Mean what?
What we said. Earlier. To the Wolfkissed. Before Sigurd.
…?
"Let us dive into the maw of Death."
I…
What?
"Never been keen on seeing your winter years", eh, Nine-Fingers?
…
Basim. Did you mean that?
I-I…
WELL? DID YOU MEAN IT?
I… I don't know. No. No.
No?
…N-no. No. Never. This life... It is a second chance. It is… precious.
And dearly won. To waste it would be—
Cowardly. Shameful.
I did not say that.
Didn't you though? Is it not as you have said?
We share the same mind, Nehal.
…
…So.
…You truly do not wish for death?
No.
…
…Not anymore.
Good.
Then act like it.
Get up, and return to this nest-of-ravens and their clan.
We have work yet to do before our debt is paid in full.
Let us begin, again.
What she kept saying found favor with him.
Becoming aware of himself, he sought a friend.
Enkidu spoke to the woman Shamhat:
"Come, Shamhat, take me away with you
to the sacred Holy Temple, the residence of Anu and Ishtar,
the place of Gilgamesh, who is wise to perfection,
but who struts his power over the people like a wild bull."
"Wolf." the wounded valkyrie snarled in accusatory disgust, spitting a mouthful of her own golden ichor at the foot of the-star-in-mourning, before attempting to struggle back onto her own, movements made ungainly and awkward by the dead weight of the broken, armored hardlight holo-arrays upon her back that composed the Valkyries' famed 'wings.'
[Once, when the ancestors of the Isu had been wilder and less civilized, they too had been led in rebellion against their shapers-and-masters by hybrid champions born of forbidden tryst. Hearkening to their lost heritage of wing and talon, these warriors had allegedly worn wings of pure solar energy - the result of their peculiar inheritance from their protogenoi sire or dam.]
[How quick and how eager the Isu were now to forget their starspawn saviors now that they had fashioned slaves of their own, or the shape of the path that Father Time had trod once before and would inexorably tread again - save in arrogant, stolen claims of lost glory as this.]
[Rumor said that the Havi's line traced back to one such hybrid, but other than poor young Baldr's (overly) much celebrated (weakly) shimmering blood, the ruling clan of Asgard had precious little to prove it to be any more than just that. Mere rumor.]
They barked out a half-mad laugh at the thought. There was a certain irony to it, to be branded 'wolf' by a foreign conscript wearing armor intended to imply a claim of descent from the greatest of wolves their history had to offer.
Wolf. Halfbreed. One whose very existence ran contrary to the law. The mixing of forbidden blood. A denunciation. A rejection. A denial of a place in the order of their world. Outcast. One, made singular and alone amid a thousand thousand humming minds entwined.
Not to the modern rebel human Hybrids and their ilk alone did this word now belong; their once-kin flung it spitefully, casually in the face of whatever mingling they had latest deemed immoral.
The Aesir half of their ancestry had never won them any reprieve in this regard.
[It was hardly the first time he had heard this word directed at himself or his kin. In Asgard he'd found himself thoughtlessly answering to Havi's jeers of "Wolf! Wolf!" as often as the equally cruel false-shackle-name of Loki, both long devoid of the friendly warmth of the (shameful, immature, intolerable) jest they might have once been intended as.]
He told himself he was used to it. That it could not be changed. That it, ultimately, did not matter.
It was not as though they would ever be able to escape it.
Being labeled a wolf.
They had ignored their human compatriots circling warily about the deck til now, but feeling the heavy weight of a particular gaze upon them, the lightbearer now looked up, searching for and finding, after a long moment, and the subtle guiding echo of her mind brushing against his, the face of his sister-by-trade.
Hawwāh stood upon the upper deck of the Naglfar, Adem at her side just a few steps behind.
He sought out and held her gaze, a wordless question in his eyes.
A short, swift nod gave him his expected answer, and he nearly started into violence then and there at her approval, already half-mad with a sort of fevered battle-craze.
"Wolf!" the valkyrie accused loudly again, as if to remind him of her existence, like as though she felt insulted to have been so momentarily forgotten.
Very well. He would oblige.
"Aye." they snarled back at the valkyrie, launching themselves at her to pin her to the ground once more. They looked down to meet the other's pain-blanked eyes, watching for the moment she comprehended the shadow-black adamant nano-shell and shimmering streaks of white-hot light that fanned out behind him for the mocking mirror of her own [stolen] wings, now broken beneath her, that they were. "A wolf."
Her eyes widened in horrified comprehension. "Starspaw-" Her voice choked off suddenly as they lashed out, burying their fang-bladed dagger beside her heart to the hilt before dragging downwards.
They had already wasted more than enough time.
[Even in his childhood home, that shining-city-on-the-sea where he'd spent his carefree and happy youth, its architects and planners had more than once casually boasted of their 'magnanimous' plans to establish the city as "a sanctuary for wolves."]
[And look how well that had gone.]
"I will challenge him!
Let me shout out in Uruk: 'I am the mighty one!'
Lead me in and I will change the order of things;
he whose strength is mightiest is the one born in the wilderness!"
NOTES
-chanting: facultative carnivore isu! facultative carnivore isu! [and sages, to a certain extent. though in this case, its out of nostalgia/preference/just because they can, bc like. why would you eat plain, unflavored oatmeal for the rest of your life when you could eat a steak perfectly (un)cooked exactly like you used to like it back when you were home.]
-hytham, age 16; ugh basim is doing the freaky mind reading thing again isnt he :/ hey wait a minute what happened to the deer?
Basim; ...don't worry about it! :|
-Basim's dialogue with Eivor during the Porchestrescire arc or whatever has me thinking many thoughts. this dude is NOT okay. [boy why are you casually voicing suicidal ideation OUT LOUD to this random viking woman.]
-wolf as a isu era derogatory term: basim be fighting for his life trying to remember that people talking about wild dogs are not calling him a slur. nehal thinks eivor's nickname is absurdly funny. Every time someone in Ravenclan mentions Fenrir as a horrible W.O.U.S. Basim starts trying to kill them with his mind.
-starspawn: if i get into this one, we'll be here for 399345 more paragraphs. this is one of those theories that sounds insane but you technically cant prove its not true and also makes a weird amount of sense when you think about it.
tl;dr: If the Isu had ALSO originally been created as a servant class genetically engineered slave-species by a advanced ancient civilization with powers beyond their comprehension, only to eventually be lead in rebellion by illegal hybrids born from unions between sympathetic members of their patrons like some sort of bizarre calculations fueled nesting doll of hubris. then. would that be messed up or what
ISU
ṇ zṃchmṇrch - we are not pets