What if Thenas past visits them once again? This time they asks for Gil’s service for a whole day to chop some wood for them. Maybe he meets Eros while he is at the castle?👀
For the runaway bride au
"I've heard a lot of you and your work."
Gil kept his head down and forward, chopping at the thick log, just enough to leave marks in it.
"The townspeople revere you--say you've helped every single one of them with something from a baby's crib to half their house."
He swiped at his forehead with his sleeve, moving to make a divet in the middle of the length of wood.
"When they said we would need a workman to help with me moving into the castle, I said why not find this lumberjack fellow?"
Yes, and Gil was honoured to be chosen. That was his official statement anyway. He certainly couldn't say that he loathed the idea of being here and working for not only Thena's tyrannical father, but her supposed 'fiance' as well.
It was actually Thena who had insisted he take the job. He was ready to turn it down, even if they offered him all the money in the world. But she was right when she said it would be more suspicious of him to turn down the work, especially considering they had suspected him once before.
So, he was here, working for the king and the idiot prince. But he had still insisted Thena not be in the cabin today, just in case they had sent men there to spy on it while he wasn't around.
"So, how's it coming?"
Gil grunted, pulling his personal axe out of the tree and sheathing it beside him. He had been here, chattering away at him, hadn't he? He sighed, "well, your highness."
"Use the saw to cut here and here," Gil directed some of the other workers present to assist him in the busywork, "then strip the bark. Call to me when you're done so I can inspect it. Then we'll move onto the next part."
"Yes, sir."
He wasn't used to - or comfortable with - people calling him that.
"So, Mister Lumberjack," the prince started up again, not paying the slightest attention to the break in his ceaseless talking. "I hear you have a lovely little cabin out in the woods."
Who would he have heard that from? Gil turned, trying not to seem overtly wary of this man he detested just from heresay. "Oh?"
"I've been out in those woods myself," Eros finally paused, looking out past the castle gates and gazing into the surrounding woods. "I've set foot in those woods in search of...something."
That was a very mysterious way of saying he had hunted Thena like an escaped animal.
Gil attached his axe to his belt again and went to the drinking water set out for him. "The woods are dangerous, your highness. Best not to let yourself get lost in them."
"Indeed," the prince agreed, again drifting along with Gil as if he had found a friend in his reluctantly listening ear. It wasn't as if he had much a choice. "You may never return, I take it."
Gil left it at that, maybe even hoping Eros would just shut up and let him continue his work. The sooner he was done, the sooner he could go home to Thena.
Thena and her smiles, so happy to see him. Thena and her horribly chopped vegetables, and her blueberry cobbler, and her tea--either far too weak or far too strong, but he loved it both ways.
"I am moving to Lord Arishem's castle because I am looking for my wife."
Gil bristled, not that he expected Eros to notice it. But it was one thing to hear Eros go on and on and on about Thena, despite them knowing each other all of what--a month? And 'knowing each other' was already a generous term for it.
But to hear Eros call Thena his wife was a new kind of slight.
"She...went missing," Eros sufficed to say.
Gil nodded, trying to think of what a normal person might say in such a situation. Someone who wasn't in fact living with the missing in question. "I'm sorry to hear that, your highness."
"But I will not stop until I have found and retrieved her," Eros stated with a renewed sense of determination. He eyed Gilgamesh, "would you let anything stand between you and the woman you love?"
"No," Gil answered quickly and firmly. Maybe a little too quickly and too firmly, but it was honest. He looked at the prince, with his shoulders squared and drawn back, all perfect posture and thick hair and a prim and spotless suit. He looked at the forest as well, "no, I wouldn't."
"Y'see?" Eros put on his smile once again, and Gil swore he could see that the veneer of it only got thinner and thinner the longer he was around this charlatan. "You and I are of the same ilk, sir Lumberjack."
Gil sincerely hoped not.
"Have you ever seen anything in those woods?"
Gil took another sip from the bucket before throwing some over his head to cool off. "Like what, your highness?"
"Like something - or someone - that doesn't belong there."
Gil ruffled his hair with the linen also provided, "no, sire, I can't say I have."
"What is your name, again?"
He wouldn't have expected the guy to remember his name. "Gilgamesh, sir."
"Gilgamesh," Eros looked at him, as if looking him in the eyes didn't make his skin crawl. "I would like to confess something to you."
"Uh," Gil shifted on his feet before grounding himself. He swallowed down his anxiety. "S-Sure, your highness."
"I have heard whispers that there is a beautiful wood sprite in that forest," Eros whispered, and yet it came out much more sinister in Gil's eyes. "I know it's her. I know she couldn't have gotten that far. And I will find her."
Gil had half a mind to ask what kind of threat that was. But he rested his hand on his axe and forced a smile on his face, "I'm sure you will, your highness."
Eros turned a more suspicious eye on him. Gil froze, waiting for whatever he was going to say next. "You're a strapping fellow, Gilgamesh. You've never married?"
Gil squirmed again, thoughts bubbling up about a certain blonde 'wood sprite' picking berries in a sunlit glen. "Lumberjacking is solitary work, your highness. I, uh, don't get out much."
Eros nodded with a completely nonplussed expression, "my sympathies."
Gil looked at the other workmen; couldn't they saw any faster?!
"I'm sorry, Gilgamesh," Eros lamented, sighing loudly. "It must seem terribly haughty of me to come here and complain about my woes while you fashion my room furnishings."
Yes, it was. "Not at all, your highness."
"I miss her."
Of all the things Eros had said, this made Gil the most uncomfortable. He didn't want to look at the expression Eros was making, but he had to know. He looked behind him, finding a wistful, almost sad expression on the younger man's face.
Gil unsheathed his axe again, moving to another piece of wood. "Did you...did you know her long, your highness?"
"No," Eros admitted freely as Gil started chopping again, "but the time I did know her was more than enough to inspire love."
Gil knew how unfortunately true that was. He swung his axe again. He was out of sympathies for this pampered rich boy.
"Thank you, Gilgamesh, for listening to my woes," Eros brushed off his shoulders, adorned in gold. "I will leave you to your work, sir."
"Yes, your highness," Gil muttered. This couldn't be over soon enough.
"I'm sure we will see each other again."
That also sounded ominously like a threat. But he kept that to himself. He refused to give anyone here any reason to suspect him, no less go sniffing around in the woods again.
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