"It seems my story differs greatly from your Enkidu. I wish I could have lived, and died, as they did. But, it is too late. Allow me to tell you my tale."
The Enkidu of the Mesopotamian Lostbelt begins an altered story just after their creation. Ishtar, daughter of Anu and Queen of Heaven, oversaw their creation from mud and found such a form distasteful in a sibling. Rather than allow her parents to do as they wished with their "tool," Ishtar stole away the lump of clay, and took the being to the Underworld, where she met with her true sister, Ereshkigal. By combining the might of their authorities, they did what their parents could not: they gave the clay doll a form and a soul. Sculpted from the beauty Ishtar saw frequently in the heavens, and granted their name for the first time by Ereshkigal, they hoped Enkidu would be a sister to them both, as she could freely move between Heaven, Earth, and the Underworld. Anu, impressed by his daughters' ingenuity, allowed them this privilege once a year, but no more, as Enkidu was still tasked with bringing Gilgamesh back to the Heavens. The time she would have spent in the arms of a harlot was instead spent as the youngest heavenly sister, and Enkidu learned the importance of family.
When she arrived before Gilgamesh, he was still a mere child, and she was forced to wait until Gilgamesh reached adulthood in order to fight and reprimand him as an equal. Though she spent a fraction fewer days with him overall, she still had the experience of watching him grow, but found his kind and gentle nature confusing. She sought council from Ishtar and Ereshkigal both, who knew much of humans, though they admitted they could not see the growth of human souls as their father could. Being her charge, it was most of what Enkidu could speak of, and the two goddesses found themselves watching the demigod with feigned interest. Ereshkigal found him mildly more interesting than the other humans, her tasks burdened her, and she eventually stopped watching, though Ishtar's interest only grew more genuine as Gilgamesh aged. When his tyrannical nature began to manifest, it confused Enkidu to hear Ishtar's interest had only grown, but this did not stop her realization that Anu was correct in his prediction of Gilgamesh's nature.
Through her understanding of Ereshkigal, Enkidu saw that Gilgamesh's arrogance stemmed from his solitude. In this world, he had no equals, and everyone was eventually driven away by him. Enkidu confronted Gilgamesh, but seeing a pain she saw in the goddess of the underworld, she did not bring up the reason why. Their battle lasted for several days. Gilgamesh was angered that this "mud in the shape of a woman" would ever be his equal, and was humiliated when he was forced to use his treasures. He soon came to enjoy the battle, and brought his weapons out without regret. After fierce fighting left both of them tattered and exhausted, both collapsed to the ground next to each other, without consideration of their location. Gilgamesh laughed as he fell, noting that there could be no winner, and only two corpses, which, for the first time in her life, brought Enkidu to laughter.
The two praised each other for their strength and valor, becoming peerless friends who went on many adventures together. Enkidu was the first individual to show Gilgamesh the folly of believing his treasures too good to use in battle. Together, they slew the beast of the gods, Humbaba, as he rampaged through the forest near Uruk. They did this solely to protect Uruk, as neither had any inclination to get involved with the gods. By this time, Enkidu had seen the suffering of the people under the gods, and wondered why her family would allow such a thing. She came to understand that Gilgamesh's path, to rule as a king who could better observe humanity's future from his solidarity, unaffected by the politics and schemes of the Heavens. It was around this same time that Ishtar stopped coming to visit her and Ereshkigal, and while Enkidu could not share her burden, Ereshkigal took Enkidu's ear and complained loudly of the selfish, spoiled girl that the Queen of Heaven had become. Having seen the people through Gilgamesh's eyes, she could not help but agree.
After that visit, Enkidu returned to Gilgamesh and confessed to him that she was but a tool who had cast aside her divine masters, vowing to serve him as his tool instead. She promised to stand at his side until the end of the world, a promise that contained a gravity she could not have understood. Gilgamesh called her a fool, telling Enkidu that those who live together, talk together, and fight together are neither people nor tools, but what is called a friend. He proclaimed that he would not have a Queen by his side that did not understand even that. Obtaining the word friend was the most precious gift Enkidu had ever received, completely unphased by his claiming that she would serve as his queen, and focusing on the sense of freedom and self that such a word gave. Shortly after this, an arrogant Ishtar descended, and pronounced that, should Gilgamesh desire a queen, she would be such a queen. Gilgamesh rejected her offer with a thought. Blinded by rage at a demigod who would dare defy the Queen of Heaven, she ignored Enkidu's attempts to reason with her, and returned to heaven. There, she received Anu's permission to release the Bull of Heaven to punish Gilgamesh for rejecting her and Enkidu for taking what she viewed as her spot.
Working in tandem to kill the beast, the two were renowned by the people of Uruk as the Hero King and Hero Queen. As the people accepted them, Enkidu realized that she wanted to be both his friend and queen. Unfortunately for her, Ishtar's fury only grew. She requested that the two be put to death by the gods for slaying their divine bull, and the gods acquiesced. However, Ishtar did not fully understand the gravity of what she and her sister had done in granting Enkidu a soul. As Enkidu spent more time with Ereshkigal, they became more tied to the Earth and the Underworld than heaven, and despite initially being a creation of the heavens, Enkidu defied the wishes of her family. Knowing that her two sisters defied her wishes, Ishtar, in her flippancy, turned from her father to her mother. Together, they created an arrow that would not simply kill them, but all of humanity, destroying not just the bodies of mortals, but their very souls. Enkidu and Gilgamesh stood against the heavens together for the final time. Enkidu could not know the ideas of the Hero King - her Hero King. He opened the gate to his treasury, and in a space untouched by any but himself, he restricted the arrow.
It was in vain, however, as the arrow turned in mid-flight to exit his treasury. With scant time, Gilgamesh tossed his divine grimoire to his friend and queen, and sealed himself inside the vault. Horrified, Enkidu quickly used the grimoire to reopen the vault, discovering that there was nothing she could do. Gilgamesh had taken the arrow meant to eradicate humanity and sacrificed himself to protect them all. His body remained, smirking lifelessly, clutching a shattered Ea, sustained only by the magic of his vault. His soul, however, had been completely destroyed. In that moment, Enkidu knew two new emotions: sadness and hatred. If the heavens would take from humanity the greatest king of their kind, she would take from the goddess that did it the only thing she could. In her fury, Enkidu tapped into the power of Gaia, and unleashed the Enuma Elish at the heavens. Her target was not Ishtar, but rather, Anu, the king of the gods who had allowed this to happen. Her chains ruptured the sky, crashing through the barrier between Heaven and Earth, and pierced Anu a thousand and one times. Ignoring the cries of Ishtar, Enkidu turned her chains on her, but was stopped. Not by Gaia, but by the pain she felt from her other sister, who had realized far too late what was happening.
Enkidu left the Heavens with a threat: if the gods wished to take humanity from her, they would meet the same fate as the king of the skies. Enkidu would never return to the Heavens, but would still venture to the Underworld once a year to speak with Ereshkigal. The only goddess who knew pain as she did, and the guardian of the lost souls of her king's precious humans, Enkidu found her cold arms the only ones that could banish the hot tears. Ereshkigal held no love for her father, who had tricked her into her eternal service so that Ishtar could shine, but she could not bring herself to hate Ishtar. Enkidu found that she couldn't either. Ishtar was never forced to learn the lessons that she, Gilgamesh, and Ereshkigal learned, for she never faced hardships. There was a moment when Enkidu thought of killing her mother, but Ereshkigal's talk of the folly of revenge brought her back.
With the unspoken support of Gaia and Ereshkigal, Enkidu assumed the mantle of Hero Queen. She has protected Uruk since that day, unaware of the greater machinations of the Lostbelt King that had lead her to this point. Perhaps the greatest thorn in the goal of such an entity, Enkidu has ruled Uruk as it evolved and changed with time. As an immortal, the people within the borders of her city loved her for generation upon generation, but Enkidu had strictly forbidden worship. She would not abandon the humanity Gilgamesh had given her, no matter what power or prestige was offered to her. An unchanging queen, one who pierced the sky in the name of the Hero King she only knew too late she loved, she would never abandon humanity. As the hands of time turned, she and Ereshkigal grew close, and often spoke of their worlds, and the regret that they could not share these moments with their sister, who had long since stopped seeing them before she ever took the life of the Hero King. She had forgotten the first thing Enkidu ever knew: the importance of family. A family Enkidu only truly knew in Gaia, Ereshkigal and, once, Gilgamesh.
Originally Posted by Cursed by Fortuna
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