Two Fell From the Nest

'Where could those two idiots be.'

'They left with Hingwave and Stratuscutter five days ago, and have not returned. Given that those mounts belong to the Headmaster, they should be able to fly non-stop for far longer than a week. Those two could be anywhere in Atela, maybe even on another continent altogether.'

'I just hope their ceaseless competition doesn't land them in real danger. More importantly, I hope they don't injure the Headmaster's mounts-- or lose them. It would probably be best for them to not return at all unless it's with those birds.'

'Sigh. Luckily, this feeling in my heart is more still than agitated. I worry for them, and fear for them, but I just know that they will ultimately be okay, and return safe. Perhaps this is some variation of what the Headmaster was talking about.'

'If it is, it just means that I only feel this way because of how closely intertwined my fate is with them. Sylvia... Marshall...'

'I hope you two can reconcile. Not just for your own sake, or my own... but for her sake as well...'

|Thoughts of Harry Featherlyfe As He Scours The Horizon|

"We apologize," the two bowed their heads, respectfully apologizing.

Though Gilgamesh had brandished the Demiurge Blade, he was still unable to reach out to its spirit. He merely relied on the sword's own passive pressure, figuring that Marshall and Sylvia would have powerful enough spirits to at least sense it.

He was right, and their eyes were locked onto the sword. The first fruits of fear took shape on their face, born in their eyes. They had likely never felt such pressure from something that wasn't a living person.

"That sword..." Marshall started.

"...doesn't matter," Gilgamesh aggressively finished his sentence for him. "What matters now is that you both take a beat and think about this."

His eyes brushed over both of them, and they shrunk under his gaze like embarrassed children. Gilgamesh himself had the look of a child, and even felt exactly like one to them, but behind it all was the strong sense of an archaic presence, looking down on them.

"Jealousy? Boastfulness? Among siblings, these things do not matter. Competition helps you grow, and as long as you love each other, you are bound to grow together. For a time, there was no one you two could rely on but each other, yes?"

The siblings sheepishly nodded.

"Then remember that time above all else. Remember the helplessness you felt, wherein you would have stayed if it were not for your sibling's motivating shove that pushed you out of it. Hatred has no place dwelling in such a relationship."

"To think it would come to you both fighting to the death, and look what came of that. Equally matched, in all your skillsets, to the point where you both suffered defeat at your own hands. Had you acknowledged your equality as brother and sister, this result would not have came to pass."

"Instead, you both stubbornly sought an edge over the other, and it became your undoing. How foolishly ridiculous."

Gilgamesh dropped the sword's tip to the floor and leaned onto the hilt. His smirk was cloaked in an admonishing kind of expression that Sylvia and Marshall had never seen. To them, it felt like Gilgamesh was taking a role in their lives that no one had ever tried to take before.

"I understand," Sylvia said, turning her face away from both her brother and Gilgamesh.

"Even if it makes sense, things just can't be that way between us."

Gilgamesh frowned, and his grip on the Demiurge Blade's hilt tightened. "Are you trying to annoy me?"

Marshall did not even notice Gilgamesh's reaction. Instead, he was taken into his own state of reverie.

"It's not that. Things really can't be that way between us. Sylvia and I can never be real siblings, that's the way it has to be."

"The way it's always been," Sylvia added, "in our family."

With a raised brow, Gilgamesh loosened his grip and leaned back. Ishtar was behind him in the chair now, and so he fell back into her chest.

"We come from Atela, a continent far from here, and are core disciples of the Silver Wing Academy. But, more than that, we are what's known as 'Blood Legacies.' It means that, not only did our parent attend the academy-"

"But they're currently the Headmaster of the Academy as well." Marshall looked up at his sister and saw her own melancholy that mirrored his own. It was like they both felt the exact same way about things.

It wasn't like they didn't know about what Gilgamesh was telling them, but they felt like they had no choice but to set those feeling aside.

"Our family founded the Silver Wing Academy, and ever since then, the Headmaster would put their children, unaided, through the academy and watch them grow. Once they showed satisfactory results, they would be promoted to heir-in-waiting of the academy, and supersede their parent when the time came."

Sylvia sighed at Marshalls explanation.

"Headmasters would break the norm sometimes, and produce two heirs just so their competition would be even more fierce. This resulted in some of the best riders in the history of the academy. Our parent was the result of such a thing, and they want us to follow in their footsteps."

"Which means," Marshall and Sylvia's eyes locked, both welling with tears, "one day, we will have to face each other a fight to the death. There is no other way."

There arose in them both an aching desire to run into each other's arms, but hesitance set in. The idea of an additional moment of tenderness, when weighed against the eventuality of their final confrontation, was heart-wrenching. Neither of them wanted that additional weight.

Most characteristically, Gilgamesh stepped in to shatter their moment of bitterness with a frustrated sigh.

"Like I said; foolishly ridiculous. Such an obvious answer eludes you? Heh!"

Despite how appreciative they felt for Gilgamesh reminding them of the delicate nature of their relationship, he was still nothing more than an outsider, looking in on their situation with no prior knowledge or understanding.

Him saying such a thing would naturally annoy them.

They tore their eyes away from each other and found his, and the insufferable variation of his smirk.

"Obvious answer? You think there's an obvious answer?" Sylvia asked, half with ridicule, the other half with a side of desperate curiosity.

"If there was such an answer, we would have found it. We both spent countless hours searching for a way to escape this fate-- there is no other way!" Marshall seemed to be more angry than anything else. He wanted to use Gilgamesh as an outlet, but Gilgamesh's next words silenced them.

"Simply do not. Desist. Abandon this fate your lineage is attempting to thrust upon you."

Their teary eyes dulled, and their faces blanched.

"Are you saying you hadn't considered this?" Ishtar spoke up for the first time, with a giggle in the back of her tone.

"But..." Sylvia froze.

Marshall shook his, "That's just not-"

"Not what?"

"It isn't possible for us!"

"Why not?"

"We can't just run away!"

"Of course you can-- just do it."

To his every word, Gilgamesh responded with calm realism. The solution was so simple, there was no other way for him to say it. It could not sound any other way-- but the way it sounded was grating to Marshall's ears.

"We would be abandoning our parent- abandoning the academy's tradition."

"So what? Your parent abandoned you both, did they not? Pitting you up against each other so one day you would fight to the death. What value is there in fulfilling such a fate? The only value you can find in it, is to abandon it the way you yourselves were abandoned."

"No... It just isn't that simple! It's our duty! We have responsibilities! We-"

"Marshall!" Sylvia's shout snapped Marshall out of his tantrum, and he gasped. He only then realized that he was slipping- losing himself in his emotions.

He recalled his training alongside the rest of the Silver Squad, and quieted those emotions.

"He is right, you know. We hated this fate more than anything, and for so long we watched as it slowly drove us apart, relying on it and petty grievances to fuel our rage. I think, deep down, I was afraid of facing it. Afraid of facing you. I wanted to get it over with as fast as possible, and I think you felt that way too."

"We let it begin to tear us apart, and because we were so focused on our fear of it, we never realized how little of a hold it truly has on us."

Marshall's eyes widened. Hearing these words from his sister had a whole new effect on him. She mattered to him, more than anything. The urge to rebut no longer arose, and he only listened.

"Just look at us. We are here, on Iggnotus, the furthest away from the academy and our parent that we have ever been, yet we still allow them to control us. The academy has no influence here-- our parent doesn't even know where we are. We are free, but chose to remain shackled."

Finally, Sylvia turned to Gilgamesh, her own teary smile forming before finally reaching a crux with a giggle, "Foolishly ridiculous, isn't it?"

Gilgamesh nodded approvingly, grinning all the while. Satisfaction overcame him for just a little, and he looked back at Ishtar and gave her a warm smile. Ishtar returned in kind, and then they both paused as similar thoughts surfaced in their minds.

"You don't think..." Ishtar proposed, a little hesitant.

"It did feel like it..." Gilgamesh gulped.

"Like you were a parent to them instead..."

Marshall's tears were finally permitted to fall, and his sister overcame her reservations and ran to him, embracing him tightly. As he sobbed, he slowly reached up and pulled her in closer.

They stayed that way for a short while, then broke their embrace. This time, though, they sat next to each other and held each other's hands, relying on each other to stave off the effects.

"Thank you so much... um," It only then occurred to them that they had never asked the boy what his name was.

"My name is Gilgamesh."

"Thank you so much, Gilgamesh!" They bowed their heads and expressed their utmost gratitude.

"I just so happen to value the bond between siblings rather highly. I could not stand seeing such a bond be tainted. It was just out of selfishness."

Humility was a strange color on Gilgamesh, and Ishtar was still adjusting to it. He rarely showed such a side, and perhaps wouldn't if not for his spirit's destruction causing his change in character.

The notion in Ishtar's mind of Gilgamesh having become an all-new person further solidified.

"Are you two hungry," Ishtar asked, already getting up to head into the kitchen.

"Most definitely," Sylvia answered for them, eliciting a laugh from Marshall.

"After that, I could eat an entire hawk- Oh crap! Where are Hingwave and Stratuscutter!?"

Sylvia also remembered the mounts and flew into a panic.

"The hawks? Inanna tied them up nearby," Gilgamesh replied, nonchalant. He returned the sword to his inventory and cozied up in the chair, not paying attention to anything anymore.

He did not notice the shock and horror on Sylvia and Marshall's faces.

Ishtar opened the door for them and pointed outside, showing them the two hawks. Their beaks, talons and wings were all wrapped in a simple straw rope, yet no matter how the giant hawks struggled, they could not snap those weak-looking ropes.

Marshall and Sylvia, mouths agape, turned around and looked at the cheery-faced woman humming and moving about in the kitchen. From there, their eyes found Gilgamesh, relaxing in the chair, and another kind of fear set in.

"She tied them up..."

"Two Level 4 Hurricane-type Hawks..."

It was beginning to set in now that the people whose house they had woken up in were, in no way, simple. The siblings looked at each other, then at the hawks struggling to break free, and finally once more at the two people within the strange house.

Sylvia opened her mouth, but she couldn't find words to say. Marshall tried as well, but all he could manage was a singular word.

"Wow."