#and I kind of love the idea of runaway Princess Thena

[softquietsteadylove]

Hello Dear! I had a dream last night that gave me so much Thenamesh vibes, so i have to share this.

It's an AU where Thena is a Princess, daughter of King Arishem and, against her will, promised to the Prince Eternal Eros himself. Thena fled from the wedding, running through the woods for days until she's not able to walk anymore and hides under a big tree in the rainy night. And Gilgamesh, sweet Gilgamesh, finding her when the sun rises. He's a lumberjack, living in the woods. He doesn't know who she is, but he wants to help her anyway. But we're talking about Thena, so she's holding a knife to defend herself, telling him not to touch her, to leave her alone. But she ends up in his cabin, eating some delicious soup he prepared. So eventually she's hiding there for days and weeks until some Royal Guards knock on Gils door, asking him if he had seen the Princess. And after the Guards are gone, he has a talk with our beautiful Thena.

I would like to ask you to write the talk that followed, if you have time and this AU speaks to you, because my alarm clock wouldn't let me finish the dream.

Much love to you!! 🖤✨

The morning of the wedding she ran.

She didn't care which direction, she didn't care that she was on foot, or that the wedding dress she hated was trailing behind her as she ran. She took off in the direction of the woods and didn't look back until her knees were numb and she couldn't breathe.

She didn't know how long she ran for. But she kept going, and going, sleeping under massive trees and within the protective shelter of caves. She ran until her feet were raw, both from the shoes and then from abandoning them and running with her feet in the dirt.

She had never been allowed to run at the castle. She hadn't been allowed to do anything under her father's oppressive watch. Except get engaged, of course. Her hand had been promised to Prince Eros long ago--so long ago that it was far too distant in her mind to be real. It was just a distant mirage of a future.

Then she met him. And he was just like every other prince and noble who saw an extension of her father - the throne - in her, wanted her crown, wanted her body--anything but her. Anything but the real Thena.

It was raining, and a few times the tree offering her shelter moaned and even snapped so loudly she wondered if it would collapse on her. It was just her and her regrets, until he appeared. He leaned down to her, tilting his head under the hood of his coat.

"Are you okay?"

She held out a knife, ordering him to stay away from her, pushing her back against the inner wall of the tree stump. "Stay back!"

He held his hands up to her, the cut up logs on his back shifting as he moved. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I'm not here to hurt you, I promise."

Thena kept her eye on him, though. She had only known two men in her life: her father, all her life, and her fiance, for a single day. She didn't trust either of them. And the men she had met however briefly, she didn't think she would be quick to ally herself with either.

"Look, I'm just gonna leave this here," he spoke softly, barely audible over the rain around them. He pulled a bundle of cloth out of the bag on his hip and slid it her way, even poking it towards her the last of the way and backing up. "My cabin is just a little further from here. I'll be making some soup when I get home...I'll be there, I mean."

And with that, he stood and left, walking in the direction he had pointed. Thena watched him as long as she was able from within her alcove. She picked up the bundle warily, but as soon as she smelled what it was her stomach growled.

And so she ended up knocking on his door, in the rain, in a sodden wedding dress, trying her best to have some dignity about her and not start crying as he led her inside.

But he was sweet, this strange lumberjack. He brought her towels and blankets, draping them over her but careful not to encroach on her space for too long or too close. He did have soup, as promised, and it smelled just as good as the sandwich he'd left her--better, even. He even let her serve herself, handing her a bowl and drifting to the other side of the room with his own.

She took a tentative sip of the soup, then a second. Then she wolfed down the whole bowl, ravenous after her days of solitude.

"You can have as much as you want," he said, easily able to tell she wanted more and didn't know how to ask for it. He walked over to the pot, ladling out more for himself and then nodding to her bowl. "You're hungry, right?"

She really did cry that time--just a few tears, which she was quick to wipe away. She held out her bowl to him, immeasurably grateful for his kindness. "Thank you."

"Gil," he supplied easily, as if they hadn't been stood in silence until now. He looked over his shoulder curiously, but he didn't ask her.

She shifted on her feet, feeling the sting of their wounds all the way up her spine. Her eyes shifted; she could tell him who she was, and maybe the name would mean nothing to him. Or she could tell him, and he would immediately know that she was the royal princess, obviously missing. They would probably reward him handsomely for her return.

"Here."

He held out her bowl for her, filled with his amazing soup again. His smile had nothing to hide, nor did it ask anything of her. It was just a smile, from a nice man with delicious soup.

She asked him questions instead, and he answered them honestly and openly. His name was Gilgamesh, he was a lumberjack who lived off the land, he had no family. And he was a great cook.

"Thena," she admitted quietly, stirring around the last few chunks of potato and herbs in her bowl. She couldn't remember ever being better fed, or more satisfied after a meal. Maybe it was the sleeping in a tree in the cold and starving, but she could swear that none of the feasts at the castle were ever this good.

"Thena," he smiled at her as he finished his own bowl. He leaned off his far shelf, reaching out to take hers to his washbasin. She handed it over gently, like a deer eating out of his palm. "That's a pretty name."

She stayed. He wasn't about to send her out in the rain, of course. And first and foremost, she was injured. He sat her in front of his fire, washing her feet in carefully heated water with medicinal herbs floating in it. It stung at first, but he handled her with such gentility that she nearly cried again. There was something almost reverent about the way he held the delicate bone of her ankle as he pressed a clean cloth to her raw skin.

She stated she would be fine on the floor, close to the fire, with a blanket. He refused. She refused his refusal. Then he picked her up, not giving her much of a choice as he placed her onto his bed and crossed his monstrously thick arms at her. "But-"

"Sleep," he ordered with his lips pursed.

She could have balked at the audacity to order her to do anything. Instead, she found herself laughing. "I'm afraid you're not as frightening as you think you are."

But he knew that. Because she had left her sad little knife in his kitchen, next to her bowl of soup.

He didn't send her away the next day, and she found herself without the desire to continue on in her loneliness. She let him check her feet, wash them again and press clean torn fabric to them. He kept doing that until she was healed, and even then, neither of them asked where she was headed.

She started helping him around the house. Just little things, at first. She was even worse than useless at cooking, having never seen a skillet - let alone handled a kettle - in her life. But she could wash and cut up the vegetables from his garden, sweep out the dirt he tended to track in after a long day, pull up the blankets on the bed he still wasn't inhabiting.

It wasn't until a particularly hard day of hauling wood that Thena managed to tempt him just to sit down on the bed while she massaged his aching shoulders.

It had taken nothing at all for him to drift to sleep like that. He even snored a little, he was so out of it. She laid him down next to her, pulling the blankets over him and everything. She still wasn't sure what to make of this sweet, kind man, but she had to admit that his snoring was almost a little bit cute.

He freaked out in the morning, discovering that he had not only fallen asleep, but wrapped his arms around her in the night. But Thena said that it was a perfectly natural thing to happen (as if she would know). And since his soreness was even more evident the next day, she used the same technique on him.

They never did end up sleeping separately again, just by...coincidence.

It was weeks over which it all took place. Thena hadn't even registered the passing of time in her little paradise. It wasn't until she saw a hint of the seasons changing that she realised how long it had been.

Then the thunder of hoof beats.

Gil opened the door, blinking at the royal guard standing there. He took in the man's shining silver armour and the scroll in his hand. "What can I do for you?"

"Sir, I have been sent by his Majesty King Arishem, and his Highness, Prince Eros," the guard declared, unfurling the scroll with the royal decree. "We have been searching for her Highness, Princess Thena, escaped from the palace."

"Escaped, huh?" Gil questioned, completely unfazed by the royal forces at his door and the urgency of their statement. "Did it suck to live there?--in the castle?"

The guard sputtered at the suggestion.

"What'd she run away for?" Gil asked, although he didn't exactly wait around for an answer. He pressed the potato he had been peeling into the hand of the guard 'for his trouble'.

"Sir, we-"

"Hope you find her!" Gil waved before closing the door on the entire royal procession. He leaned against the inside of the door, waiting until he heard their horses galloping off to push off of it.

Thena emerged from where she had rushed to hide herself among the woodpiles in the back. She poked her head out, guilt making her eyes drag along the ground. "They're gone?"

"They're gone," Gil promised, and she did bring herself to come back into the kitchen with him, hands fidgeting over the apron he had sewn for her out of scraps of the - lengthy - wedding dress train.

Thena squirmed as he took her hands in his, pulling her away from their vegetables and over to the table. He sat her down, choosing to lean against the table and look down at her.

"There something you wanna tell me, Sweetheart?"

Thena stared down at her hands on her lap. It seemed so strange to recognise the patterns of flowers on the apron that was once her wedding dress. "I didn't mean to lie to you."

Gil nodded, his arms still crossed, almost having to lean down to hear her. "I know."

Thena sighed. He was so sweet, even in the face of blatant deception. She peeked up at him, and it was almost even worse to see no trace of anger or betrayal on that handsome face of his. She bunched up the apron in her hands. "I was betrothed to Eros by my father's word. I was always intended to marry him so our kingdoms could combine forces."

"But the morning of the wedding, I...something happened. I-I don't know--I just...couldn't. The ladies helping me prepare were talking about life 'once I was married', and circling me, and pulling my hair and getting me into this dress and I-"

Thena looked up at Gil.

"I ran. I ran to the nearest door I could find and out the back of the castle into the woods. I ran until I thought I would meet my end, because I couldn't bear the thought of signing my life away to that man."

Thena looked down again but Gil reached out, tipping her chin back up to him with the gentlest of fingers.

"Is that why you stayed?" he asked gently, although there was plenty he needed to know within that one question. "All this time?"

Thena felt her cheeks flush with warmth. She wasn't entirely sure what had made her so resolute to stay. Surely she could have kept running--had she asked, Gil probably would have offered to help her. Given her shoes and some food, at the very least. She could have lied to him about why she was out there in the first place. She could have left at any time.

But she stayed. She stayed because her feet still hurt, and because by all that was good, the food he made was amazing. She stayed because she found his bed so much comfier than her plush monstrosity at the castle. She stayed because even once her feet felt better, she couldn't just run off with his kindness in hand.

She stayed because every time he came home and gave her that same smile, she convinced herself that she could stay just one more day, desperate to see it again.

Thena's eyes fluttered as his lips pressed between her furrowed brows. She hadn't even realised how tense she was all over until she relaxed. She had felt for herself how rough and calloused his hands were from the work he did. But his lips were soft.

"You can stay as long as you like, Thena," he promised her, and he meant it, because he was Gilgamesh. He smiled, "or should I be calling you Princess?"

She rolled her eyes; he would think this was just so funny. "Please, don't."

"Fine, but don't go out berry picking for the next few days?--just in case those guys are hanging around in the area." He said it so casually, the same way he had first suggested he teach her to peel the potatoes and carrots safely. He leaned off the table, returning to the kitchen with one less potato than when they started making dinner. "I'm sure they'll get tired of sniffing around here soon enough."

Thena turned in her seat, watching him start to peel onions with a simple little smile on his face. "Gil?"

"Hm?" he wasn't even looking at her, so comfortable with her presence and whatever she had to ask or say.

Thena gripped the back of her chair, letting it creak. "Why...?"

He looked up at her with a soft expression. He'd had this same look on his face when he was washing her cut and scraped feet, and when she had first welcomed him home with the worst kettle of tea he'd ever had, and when he first woke up with her in his arms. "Because you want to be here."

That was it. It was that easy for him--that simple. He returned to the onions, chopping them with flawless skill. She disliked them almost as much as peas, but he kept insisting that if he cut them up small enough and cooked them long enough that she wouldn't even taste them.

She could.

"And I want you here, too."

Thena leaned her chin on her hand, watching him work instead of leaping up to join him again. She would in a minute. They could talk about things--what was to come, what would need to happen if she was going to become a permanent resident of the cabin. Or they could talk about how the pumpkins were growing and the animals Gil saw while he was out working.

She just wanted to be with him.