.

.

.

"The bruises go away, and so does how you hate, and so does the feeling that everything you receive from life is something you have earned."

Once, Gareth told her a story. His brothers kidnapped a girl, a virgin, and used her as bait to lure out a unicorn. They murdered it, hacked off its head to bring the horn back to their mother.

He cried all night long afterward.

Arturia had listened and offered comfort, but she had not understood.

She did not know how to understand people. She only knew how to judge them.

...

Arturia was back.

Her knees buckled. She gripped a sword for balance and stared out at the hill. At the corpses littering the ground like poppies in a meadow. She wanted nothing more than to sleep.

Despair enveloped Arturia. She felt lonely and sad. A multi-faceted blue diamond dripping crystalline tears. She missed Gilgamesh. It hurt as if a hole had been drilled into her heart.

Acceptance replaced the sadness. Arturia would seek out the Holy Grail, and try again. Perhaps next time she would not fail.

(Too proud to ask for help and to set in her ways to break free alone, the vicious cycle perpetuated.)

A shadow appeared on her peripheral. The movement caught Arturia's attention. Silent and stoic, she watched Ishtar approach. Black kohl trailed down the goddess's smooth, dark cheeks.

"Leave this place," Ishtar said. "I shall set you free. Your contract will be null and void."

Arturia stared. After a moment her mouth tightened. She shook her head. Ishtar looked frustrated.

"You do not belong here. You have earned your peace. Come with me. You may rest."

There was a river and a boat. Women in cowls waited. In the distance lay an island, shrouded in red-tinged fog.

She shook her head, again.

"Why linger? You have accomplished much. You have won many hearts and minds, Gilgamesh included. Do you not understand what an achievement that is? Did you not know good food, good companions, good lovers? Have you not witnessed miracles, have you not performed miracles-how many can say the same? Your life has had much beauty and joy, and that deserves to be recognized and appreciated. What good is to be found wallowing in sadness and tragedy, drowning out everything else in life? Rest, Arturia, you have played your part."

Arturia ignored Ishtar. Agitated, the goddess became bitter. She said, "I tell you truly, you have always loved your own suffering above all else."

Ishtar continued speaking, but all Arturia heard were the sounds of clashing swords and dying men. The fog deepened, masking the island once more.

Eventually, Ishtar left, leaving Arturia alone in her own personal hell once more.

...

Many months passed.

One day Gilgamesh returned to Uruk. He came by boat. His hair had grown long, his clothes tattered, but he was clean and sane. Every blemish and scar on his body had been healed, including the marks on his hands, skin smooth as a newborn babe.

Gilgamesh leaped off the boat, onto the shore of the Euphrates. He surveyed the walls of his city. A ferryman stayed on the boat, watching the king. Gilgamesh turned and spoke to him.

"For whom do my arms toil? For whom has my heart withered and dried? Inspect the walls of Uruk. You will see oven-baked brick to its very core. The seven sages themselves laid down its foundation."

Gilgamesh fell silent. The ferryman remained quiet. Gilgamesh took his leave, as did the ferryman. They went their separate ways.

Gilgamesh walked back to Uruk. He heard a commotion as the soldiers spied him. At the gate, Ishtar waited.

"I loathe you," she said.

He paused and then smirked. With one hand, he summoned Ea. The sword shivered in the mortal air.

"You no longer have a hold on me," Gilgamesh told her, pointing his weapon at her heart. "I have seen the future, and I know the truth. I now stand taller than your shadow."

After a pause, she stood aside, letting him pass. He allowed Ea to dissipate. An early version of himself would have been elated over the triumph. However, Gilgamesh no longer cared. Ishtar was not worth his time nor energy. No one was, god and man alike. He had ascended beyond everyone; they were all beneath him.

Gilgamesh continued his journey back into the city. People crowded the streets, quiet and uncertain. He ignored them.

He climbed the steps of the palace. Shamash ambled by, joining his side, older, slower, greyer, but still alive. Together they entered the throne room. Gilgamesh took his place on the throne.

Shamash rested his head on Gilgamesh's knee. He petted the lion and thought of Arturia.

Gilgamesh selected a memory of her, one to cherish forever more. He almost chose the visage of her destroying Gugalanna. But most of her life she had been known as a warrior. He wanted a special moment that belonged to him alone. Gilgamesh went with the image of Arturia standing on water, on the water of the Euphrates, head turning toward him as an osprey flew away behind her, clutching a fish in its talons, scales flashing silver in bright sunlight. She had looked so young and vulnerable and yet powerful and wise at that moment. Blue on blue on blue. For a fleeting moment, he believed in the goodness of humanity, that it was beautiful and true.

He knew better now. Gilgamesh had accepted his fate. Accepted that he would die, that nothing mattered, that the world would keep on spinning regardless of atrocity until the sun exploded and all that remained was the cold emptiness of space.

His mind went blank. He thought nothing, felt nothing. Cool indifference encased him in thick, impenetrable armor. Gilgamesh locked away the memory of Arturia, buried it deep in his heart. He would not forget her, but no longer would he mourn her.

Gilgamesh ruled for many long years. He would be remembered as a great king.

Fin.

Notes:

Prepare for a very long author's note. This was supposed to be its own chapter, but then I would've ended on 29 chapters. My OCD wouldn't allow such an event to pass, haha. Also, I suppose I owe an apology to my ffnet readers. I finished this story like a year ago but was very lazy when it came to uploading it here. I blame this site's archaic interface.

Anyway, full disclosure, this is the first long term project that I've completed. Ever. And I've been writing for over ten years.

I made a ton of mistakes with this story (like that time I had someone reference a wrecking ball... this story is anachronistic, but that was a bridge too far lol), but for that reason alone I'm so, so, so proud of it. Thank you to all the kind people who've supported me while writing this. I deeply appreciate it.

There was one point where I considered taking the story down. And that was after the Weinstein scandal. I wasn't sure I was comfortable writing about someone who engaged in predatory sexual behavior after that, when so many people stepped forward with horror stories in the entertainment industry. But ultimately I knew this story to be about cycles of abuse, and I know people who have been sexually assaulted, and as such I tried to approach the subject with as much tact and respect as possible. I don't know if I succeeded, but know that I thought about it a lot, and I did the best I could while still staying true to the characters and the original epic.

When it comes to Fate, when I first started out, I told myself I would try to stick to the mythology as best I could. But then I realized I didn't... really... care. So I kind of threw that out the window, haha. Still, there are a lot of callbacks to the Fateverse, so I think I did a'ight in that respect. My favorite is that I managed to conclude Arturia's arc in a very similar manner to the end of Fate/Zero. Not bad, me.

The quotes at the start of each chapter are from Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Everything is Illuminated, and Here I Am. He got me through a dark time when I was younger and although I don't like his stuff as much as I used to, it still holds a special place in my heart.

The major books I used for reference were Daily Life in Mesopotamia by Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat and Gilgamesh: Translated From the Sin-Leqi-Unninni Version by Jon Gardner and John Maier. I also cross-referenced this with the N.K. Sanders version, and another version I can no longer find, annoyingly enough, that had older Sumerian versions on the document as well.

For the Arthurian aspect, most of it is based on The Once and Future King by T.H. White, since that's my favorite version and also jives well with the Fate universe. I also read Mists of Avalon by Marion Bradley Zimmer and, of course, the original Le Morte D'Arthur by Thomas Malory. I strongly recommend checking out some of these books if you haven't already.

I've taken a long break from writing about these two. I'm a little drained, haha. Sorry to the people looking forward to more Conversations about Anything and Everything.

Again, thank you so much for all your kind words. Just please don't call this a masterpiece or anything, you're all very sweet but it's not, a lot of the best parts lean on much better original works. I just put my own, unabashedly progressive spin on it, haha.

Much love to everyone, see you around.