Chapter Text
Their first heartbeats echoed across the boundary between life and death.
Then the drumming in their veins came like a nightmare.
Slow and foreign at first. Inscrutable. They didn’t even realize they were feeling it.
It felt like a dream of being alive - but dreams require life to begin with. Slowly, steadily, the pumping began to ache. First in their veins, then in their gut. Their whole chest began feeling like it was being squeezed from the inside. It then quickly turned to searing pain, radiating from their lungs to their heart, then through the veins in their limbs. They gasped, deeply, unconsciously, life being forced back into their body giving the same sensation as drowning. Their heart’s beating was agonizing, each contraction deep and desperate.
Was this the pain of being born?
No, surely not. This was the pain of rebirth.
They turned their body over, aching, coughing, gasping, clutching at anything. They were cold. Naked. Almost afraid, but not quite. They gave themselves time to gain their bearings and sense of balance as their renewed blood caught oxygen in their lungs. Was it even blood? They couldn’t tell. They could feel their limbs tingling painfully as the memory of air and life was slowly restored. They couldn’t visually process anything right now, it was overwhelming. So they closed their eyes.
It was coming to them slowly, like the life that had returned to them. Memories. First were the ones from time immamorial.
Walking through fern prairies of eras long gone. Consoling Mother. Kissing her. Joining with her in her war.
The pain of death - the first. Their memory had done them the service of dulling the recollection of the sensation of being cut in half. They watched in their mind’s eye as their siblings selfishly took what was his own for their own purposes. What they did to Mother. For that, surely he could never forgive.
Then came small glimpses of something else. A great city being forced to its knees under Mother’s infinite rage. He felt…betrayal at her? Hurt? This….seemed incorrect, but it was a memory no less.
Then there was the man who gleamed at the crown of the palace. They remembered tears, pain, frustration. Longing. He stood proud and confident in the face of obliteration. He and those near him, they were sure, were the wall blocking the end of the world. And they knew, somehow, that their worth had been assessed and proclaimed to be of great value by that golden king who fell to the depths.
As they started to open their eyes, something else flashed between the fluttering of lashes. Ancient days in the sun, heart entwined with him. Beautiful savagery under the stars, the sweet embrace of finding one another in battle and in mundanity. Sleeping breast to breast and feeling one another’s heartbeats. The king’s face was omnipresent in these flashes of the past. They weren’t themselves…. The voyeurism of it all made them sick to their stomach.
Still new to this body, they hurled at the first sensation of nausea. Nothing much came out - bile had combined with clay to create an unsavory slip that dripped from their throat. That was new.
This body was both frightfully foreign and familiar. It was strange, they didn’t know how to feel about that. Their hair was long and pale. What were once spring green locks were now the color of platinum. It was heavy, yet fine. Coated in millennia of dry earth, much like their skin. Their eyes were finally adjusting to the light. It wasn’t much, but they were seated in the middle of a shaft of sunlight, beaming in through a hole in the roof of this vast, deep cavern. It gleamed dimly off of cream-colored, rectangular scales that rowed themselves along their hand. Their long, slender fingers ended in sharp, curved claws. It was then that they became cognisant of the long, scaly tail protruding from the bottom of their back. They moved it from side to side languidly. That was nice. They noticed that the weight on their head was not limited to their hair. Upon their crown were two centers of weight. They reached up and touched - scales still transmit plenty of tactile information it seemed. These were tall, coiling horns. Like that of a kudu. This was all brand new.
The loose cave-bottom dirt beneath them seemed to have been the medium of a great magic circle, no less than ten feet in diameter. It looked as if it had been somewhat hastily drawn and walked through in places. The soft earth recorded the traces of his origin that he felt were perhaps less important than other matters at the time. Nonetheless, he committed every line and bare footstep to memory.
As they turned, they caught a glint of gold at the edge of the circle. An oddly shaped object, maybe a foot or so in length, sat just beyond their reach.
That man’s gleaming visage clung to their mind like the dust to their skin. They needed to wash, badly.
Shakily, he stood to his scaly feet in the gentle ray of sun. Their stirring sent particles drifting in the light, dancing ephemerally around them. They walked over to the gilded item and picked it up, inspecting it.
A smooth, curved, flat handle supported what would look like something vaguely resembling a blunt blade, but they knew that wasn’t what it was. Something intrinsically told them it was a key. Intricate geometric lines and circles were cut into the edges of the blade all the way through. There was a very strong identity to it, and they’d certainly have to figure out what it was. They absorbed it into themselves for safekeeping.
A tugging in their feeble-gaited heart haunted their whole trek.
He did not know how long he walked until he found the aquifer. He was glad it was an open pool deep in the earth. Stepping in and letting his clay form absorb the moisture revealed to him just how stiff his joints were. The water was frigid, and immaculately clean. He could really move and feel now. It was satisfying, cleansing his skin, his scales, his hair. He felt like he could get used to this form. He wasn't entirely sure what was going on in between his legs yet, but he’d figure that out when convenient.
They stepped out of the pool, and allowed their skin to dry in the cool, stale air. Once satisfactory, they willed clothing onto their form. Memories passed over the back of their eyelids again of long white linen draping over them. It was tempting, but it didn’t feel quite right. For now, black would suffice. White, spring green and gold danced like fireflies in their memory. The gold…
Ah, they thought idly to themselves. There he is again… Their mind’s eye was littered with fragments of him.
That was right - that man. He was their first goal. Find King Gilgamesh.