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[To his credit, Waver's reaction was just to roll his eyes as he took a bite of his own slice.]

Is there a reason it shouldn't? Most anyone with sense would be on edge around a door to endless power.

[ to be fair, Gil's wrath has so far manifested as sending an industrial pallet full of canned beans to Takame so it's a good read and reaction. ]

So no one else in this city has sense, is what you're confirming? No one else has bat an eye at me pulling random objects and bits of weaponry out of the portals.

[ more cake for the cake demigod. ]

Edited 2024-08-30 13:49 (UTC)

With all respect, none of them have ever seen you as an enemy. I'm very well aware my unease is irrational; if I didn't realize that, I wouldn't even be here.

[this emotional support cat could not be happier]

Separating the person in front of me now from the Archer and even Caster I know is not an easy task, but I have been trying to at least manage a good faith effort. If you find fault in that, there isn't a lot more I can do right away.

Edited (stupid phone ) 2024-08-30 13:52 (UTC)

'Tis brave enough of you to try, even though it's well over a year overdue.

[ look at that little weed cat scarf that cake.

the other cats are going to come investigate what's happening on their table--though only the dainty calico approaching Para to give him a good sniff is corporeal. the pair of ghosts are sticking their faces through Gilgamesh's wrists and into the cake to little effect.

having Waver say the quiet part outright is... interesting. he's not sure what to call the sudden emotion it pings in him. amusement. annoyance? indignation? ]

I mean, I see the divisions between myself, Archer, and Caster as plain as I see the hair on your head. If there's a question you wish to ask, you may ask it.

Edited 2024-08-30 14:34 (UTC)

[god why are you a disney princess and magnet for weird shit.]

Like I said--it's irrational. I know it is. It's plain as day right now that you're someone else, and I want to understand that more clearly rather than be a hypocritical fool about the matter. If there's something you want to explain in clear terms, then you have an attentive audience.

[ because he's a billionaire with not enough sense to keep himself bored and unhappy in a rocket mansion somewhere. he's in his 'finding weird shit to be a part of' phase. he has enough people around him saying he doesn't need to see the Titanic first hand that he contents himself with ghost cats.

he tilts his head just a little as if Waver is a ledger he's trying to add up in his head, moving the ones and zeros in neat little piles until things come out to the math he expects. a wry little smirk comes to his lips. ]

If only you'd give me some direction in what you wanted to know... but I suppose we can do some sort of terrible speed-dating mimicry.

I was born Jahangirkhan Khalaji about thirty-five years ago and my birthday was on the 1st. My parents were mortal, wealthy, and incredibly wrapped up in their own lives so I was raised by nannies and othersuch paid help. I picked up 'Gil' as a nickname because the people at my American university couldn't figure out my name, and life's too short for me to have another person trying to respectfully fumble over far too many letters for their usual liking.

The Archer I've seen in my memories is a tyrannical, nihilistic brat who stands on high so he doesn't have to think about how limited his place in the cosmos feels, and the Caster is a self-sacrificing fool who reigned long, prosperously, and alone.

... and sometimes a flicker of some aberrant Chaldean nonsense comes to me, but I don't think that has ever truly been part of me--or it wasn't until something unnatural happened, and the less I have to think about it, the happier both of us will be.

[ one of the ghost cats is now approaching Waver to try his cake instead. They're a small, tawny-gray little creature when the light hits them just so. Their whole head can fit through Waver's hand if he lets it. ]

... that's Enkidu, by the by.

...

[True to his word, he did listen with complete attention; his hand moved in some attempt to pet the ghost cat, though his eyes remained focused on Gilgamesh. Calculating, if in a much different way. What was a ledger for Gilgamesh was a chess board for Waver--evaluating a thousand different possibilities, measuring potential courses of action and what might unfold once they were followed.]

I'm relieved we're on the same page in that regard, in both cases. I can't claim to know Caster well enough, but your summation of Archer is something I couldn't possibly have said better myself.

[Then he paused to consider something, slowly taking a drink of the wine in front of him. Gilgamesh probably wasn't going to poison him, least of all after all that.]

I wonder, if you don't mind my asking...how do you reconcile that; knowing the person you were in another timeline was wildly different to the person you are here and now?

[ where Waver had a thousand possibilities to contemplate, Gilgamesh only had one truth. that was what being Absolute meant; it was what it was, and only a grand act could change the path. he saw his way forward and he walked it--and whatever came would come. he would meet it all the same. ]

He's the one that I resonate with most, I think. The Caster--the Wise King--had a more subdued life, given that he'd completed his grand journey and settled into the art of statecraft and rulership while Archer refused to wear those shackles.

[ Enkidu continues to rub his little see-through head all up and down Waver's arm, while the calico raised a careful paw towards Para to give him a curious tap right on the weed.

he takes a sip of his own wine--a gesture of good faith, perhaps. it's not like he'd poison the King's Wine. that'd be a crime against wine. ]

It's not complicated. He was who he was, and I am who I am. His path, trials, glories, and tragedies were his, and mine are my own. I've inherited his legacy of power--but I feel no particular compulsion to indulge in his wickeder desires.

[ another sip. he studies his cup of wine as if the numbers he's missing are at the bottom of the cup. ]

When I met Kirei Kotomine, there was a surge of recognition from the depths of my soul. He was, after all, a man that Archer had been firmly entangled with--I don't know if I'd call them friends, as Archer was so insistent that he stood alone save for. Well. You know. [ another sip. he rotates the goblet slow to see the wine glitter in the gold of the cup as he works his way through his thoughts, picking them apart to find his point. ]

But the common ground that they held was something opposite to the principles I hold and what I value. I am, after all, 'Gil'--CEO of far too many companies, occasional philanthropist, and general pain in the world's ass. I'm not an ancient Babylonian demigod who hated the rot and the weakness of the modern world--it's what I was born to and what belongs to me.

Now, on one hand, there was a sense that the priest was 'mine', but after that flash of feeling passed, he stood as a danger to the company I keep now. What's actually 'mine', if that makes sense. [ god, will someone help him understand what empathy is, he's too rich for this. ] Something changed when he killed Takame. The fight stopped being something that was inevitably going to end in victory and became something that had a cost in flesh and bone, and I...

[ felt weird about it. he's scowling into his wine a little. it scrunches his nose and wrinkles his forehead as he psychically tries to interrogate the ghost of grapes past. ]

[paracelsus has been Booped. what a terrible insult, an injustice, a--nah just kidding he's purring up a storm and doing a tap right back.]

...I think all of that makes a lot of sense, actually. [The person he was, versus the person he could be. Few people focused so sharply on latent potential as Waver, and he saw the shape of the matter clearly through that particular lens.]

There's only so much of this I can truly understand, since I lack memories like that. But the wider concept is something I've considered myself; that a person is 'themselves' regardless of what they might be in other timelines. Things like what one might be fated to be are useless, and nature versus nurture seems a stupid debate to have as well.

So I guess...now that I have a better perspective, maybe what I wanted to do was apologize.

[ic inbox] - Kaisou

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