Flutiebear: Rambling My Way Through Thedas

This one pulls heavily from the Epic of Gilgamesh, which if you’ve never read it, here’s The Reader’s Digest version: King Gilgamesh is a total dick. Anu, the sky-god, creates a man from clay, Enkidu, to stop him. They fight, but like total dudebros, they instead become buddies (maybe more). Enkidu dies. Gilgamesh goes nuts with grief and tries to find a way to save him from Irkalla, the underworld (which is ruled by Queen Erishkigal). Spoiler: G-dawg fails. It’s awesome. Go read it.

***

Dean’s Lament

When Anu wrenched you from the nothingness,
He infused flood-kissed clay with wrath and storms
And sent you after me, screaming, wild.

But from me you learned more than you were given.
I offered you arrogance, and freedom,
Shrugged them from my shoulders like a cracked leather jacket
That I draped across yours because you were cold.

Let Enkidu die, the gods raged, but Gilgamesh must not.
You threw back your shoulders and promised,
“We’re making it up as we go along,”
Like the raindrop cursing the hurricane
For decreeing it in his nature to be wet.

My gifts are too paltry; they will not protect you
When you march through Irkalla’s seven gates.
You’ll shrug them off so easily, like they never existed at all.

When Erishkigal welcomes you home,
She will embrace you, her arms smelling of the river.
She will whisper “my little angel” into your blood-caked hair.
She will cut you a slice of apple pie.
She will have set the table for two.

It’s a tempting offer, I know. But do not take it just yet.
Stay with me awhile longer.
Be the axe at my side, my brother, the sword at my waist.
Together we shall slay the bulls of heaven
And the monsters flooding the earth.

Within you swirls the fury and fomentation of hurricanes,
Battering those cheap clay walls, begging to be unleashed.
But stay with me awhile longer.
Do not hurl my gifts away. Let me protect you.
Just this once.

You won’t listen. The raindrop never does.
It falls to Earth anyway.