#gilethen

[rangerangel]

A little Selethen treat while I prep for the Gathering :)) he's my little guy fr, I wish he was in more of the books. Someone write me a fanfic about a day in the life of the wakir fr

[mostlywhump]

SO HEAR ME OUT

I’m not out here calling Gilan and Jenny a little gay (I’m just not that kinda fella but if Gilethen is referring to Seleythen [yes]) but

ANYWAY I’d argue that JF only put them together because that was back when YA books thought it was only a happy ending if every character was matched up with another character lmfao

💕✨boys and girls💕✨ ya know?

So that being said it’s giving ✨lavender marriage meets ✨married to the job

They seem like kindred spirits and I actually would love to see more writing about them as very close friends because I think it’s really sweet how they talk to each other and a lot of it can read as a platonic love but maybe that’s my questionable ace/demisexual coming through

They seem to be really safe spaces for each other

Okay that’s it bye

[witchersgoldenbard]

Ranger’s Apprentice fic. a snippet during book 7 (Erak’s Ransom) while they’re captured.

1.1k words of Gilan/Selethen for @kasztanisagod.

tags: gilan whump, soft selethen, hands and smiles

Gilan’s whole body is made of pain, and has been for the past few days. His feet are aching and raw from trying to keep up as they were bound to horses and dragged along. His skin is chafed and bleeding where the unforgiving sand has managed to destroy his clothes after one too many fall, and even the smallest of cuts feel like his body is nothing more than a pulsating mess. 

Worst of all, though, is the dizziness. He doesn’t know if his head is still bleeding or if the wetness he can feel running down his temple is his body’s testament to the desert heat, but it doesn’t make a difference anyway. 

There’s only pain. And nausea. His eyes are open but he needs a second to understand what he’s seeing — and what he’s seeing is the wall of a cell. Distantly, he hears a door clanging shut, but that might just as well be a memory. 

He’s going to throw up. Tough luck when you don’t even know where up is. 

A groan leaves his mouth as he tries to take a deep breath and fails miserably. Instead, he can add two broken ribs to the list of misery. 

Gods above — Arridi, Skandian, whichever Gods are listening — he’s tired. But he fears that if he closes his eyes, he might not open them anymore for the sheer release that would bring. He can’t sleep, can’t rest, not when— 

“Easy now,” a gentle voice interrupts his less than coherent thoughts and just moments later, a tender hand is combing through his blood-crusted hair. “You shouldn’t move, my friend. There’s nowhere to move to anymore.” 

Gilan frowns, his brain trying and failing to provide any information at this point. The hits to his head must have been worse than he thought if his short term memory refuses to work with him completely. 

“We have reached Maashava,” the voice continues and Gilan has to blink the fog away to make out its owner. When he does, it must show in his eyes, for the worry in Seley el’then’s eyes makes way to the briefest of smiles before returning even stronger than before. “Do you not recall?”

Gilan just stares up at him. That’s all his wrecked body and mind allow him to do right now. That’s all they want to do when gentle hands comb through his hair and chase away some of the pain. 

It is then that reality slowly comes back to him and he realises where he is. He’s lying in a bleak but blissfully cool cell — any more of the desert heat in his current state, and you might have had a fair chance at reaching for his oak leaf looking him dead in the eye and he wouldn’t have been able to stop anyone from succeeding. 

Shame rises in him and he has the urge to apologise to Halt, to explain, but moving his head to the side, he sees that Halt isn’t any better off. He appears to be sleeping and Evanlyn is washing blood away from his face. 

Gilan blinks once, twice, and takes in his old master. It’s not a competition, he knows, but shame makes way to satisfaction when he sees that everyone else hasn’t taken as many hits, kicks and punches as himself. His distractions have worked, then. 

That’s good. Now if only they didn’t make him so nauseous. So tired. So…

“Don’t fall asleep, Gilan,” Selethen demands, and the world tilts slightly, which makes everything worse until… soft. It’s softer now. 

Selethen has moved him so his head is resting in his lap now. 

“You don’t look too good, Ranger. Sleep is dangerous in your state, no matter how badly you might need it. Give it a few hours, please.” 

A beat passes where Gilan tries to process the words that are just too many. Since when does Selethen talk so much? 

“Lies,” he says after a while. 

“Lies?” 

“I look very good. You just can’t see it under all the blood and the bruises.” He tries to crack a smile, but even the huffed breath jolts his head too much. 

Selethen does him the favour of a brief chuckle, and Gilan feels better for it. Lighter. Light is good, he finds. Maybe all he has to focus on is Selethen and his hands working out the clumps of dirt and blood from his hair, maybe all he has to to is make him smile and the world will be a bit less painful. 

His world narrows down to all the ways Selethen is close to him and it does keep him occupied, but it also gets his mind wandering, the adrenaline of the past days wearing off. 

“Keep doing that and I will fall asleep,” he says after another beat of silence. Fall asleep and dream. Dream of what this could mean. Dream of smiles that make me feel lighter. 

“Keep doing what?” Selethen asks, and Gilan senses a trick to just keep him talking, no matter how slurred his speech is. He needs a moment to remember what he said.

“This,” he says eventually, and Selethen only hums. Finding words is hard. He tries. And tries again. “Being gentle.” 

Another smile and Gilan wants to close his eyes to keep it there. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, my friend.” 

“Can’t not be gentle?” He’s losing force on the consonants. The pain is getting stronger, his nerve ends more frayed and his vision blurry. This is familiar. He gives himself another quarter of an hour at most before he will lose his consciousness, no matter how hard he tries to stay here. With Selethen and his wavering smile. 

“Not with my friends, no.” 

This time it’s Gilan who smiles at the word friends. He likes to be Selethen’s friend. The man is admirable, he’s strong, he’s respected by his people and his soldiers, he’s kind, he’s quick-witted and patient, and his hands are impossibly soft. 

“I know you said not to sleep, and I’m no one to deny a wakir’s command, but…” He swallows. Words are hard. He’s not sure they come out as planned, but he perseveres. “I’m afraid I have to prove to you now how stubborn Rangers can be.” 

Another hum from above him and Gilan opens his eyes he hadn’t even noticed closing. The world is fading, but still Selethen is at its centre. 

“I’ll be here when you wake up, then, stubborn Ranger.” 

Will you smile at me still? Gilan wonders. 

“Always,” Selethen says, but before Gilan has time to wonder if someone else has said something, darkness has swallowed him whole.

[permettez-moi]

Shoutout to the three (3) gilan/seley el'then(selethen) fics on ao3 keeping me sane

[kasztanisagod]

gilethen headcannons because I really don't want to write a third fanfiction about them and my obsession only grows stronger with each passing day:

gilan and selethen get together after gilan's first mission in arrida, but nobody notices (halt suspects something but he isn't quite sure – he saw gilan talking to jenny on his wedding and it misled him)

surprise: jenny and gilan are just besties, also she makes the best plum pie, so gilan just follows her around with his puppy eyes

gilan and selethen exchange letters, of course. when he becomes the corps commandant (I still can't get over the fact that crowley died and duncan is still alive, like, come on, flanagan) it becomes more frequent as they have to discuss international matters as well as their undying love confessions

about love confessions: I like to imagine that they first said they love each other during the fifth brotherband book – that's how the herons found out (although I still quite like the idea that hal found out because gilan had a wedding ring on his left hand)

as I have wonderful and truly outstanding math skills (that is an obvious lie) I managed to figure out that during RA, gilan is in his early twenties (I think twenty one or twenty two), and in brotherband there is a mention that he is not yet thirty. assuming that brotherband happened somewhere between the lost stories and the royal ranger: a new beginning, gilan, during the whole TRR series would be in his forties (this might be completely wrong but anyways). where i'm going with this: gilan and selethen got married when gilan was thirty eight.

so, we all know that the herons visited araluen on several occasions, but I am thinking here specifically about the one visit when maddie was already an apprentice and they helped her with saving cassie or something (forgive me for the lack of details here, but I erased the whole TRR series from my brain as it caused me some serious emotional damage). now, if I remember correctly, halt wasn't around and the herons left before he returned and they never actually met, but: what if they did?

I think that one of the herons would mention the relationship that gilan and selethen have, because they've known about it for quite some time and they just generally like to tease gilan. (I am assuming that gilan did not propose to jenny even once and they were friends, of course) and while halt was just like 'yeah I knew it' (he actually made a bet about it with crowley, but… you know), will was. well. caught off guard.

now, moving on from writing gilethen into the plot (it basically wrote itself I am so sorry, this was supposed to be short). time for more specific headcannons about them

they like to hug a lot, I think. or hold hands. sometimes, during a fight, they hold hands (selethen is very glad that gilan can fight with both of his hands). they don't have assigned pet names, but selethen probably calls gilan his sunshine sometimes. (gilan repays with calling selethen 'my love' to which he just melts)

gilan introduced selethen to blaze just after they started dating. selethen was very nervous about this (he found it quite ridiculous at first, but he quickly got over it when she bit him), and he almost had a cardiac arrest when gilan told him that he has to try and ride on blaze, and if she accepts him, she won't throw him off the saddle. of course, he didn't say a word about the special password, so we all know how it ended.

gilan still laughed at him because of that even ten years later.

this is getting out of hand, I have to finish now or else this monstrous thing will reach 3k words for sure

last but not least, after gilan's sudden death selethen couldn't stand living so close to the desert – it was his home, but it was also full of sunshine, and how was he supposed to move on if his sunshine was long buried under the green hills of araluen?

I am terrified that flanagan will actually kill gilan off so that will can be the corps commandant. that thought keeps me awake at night (and this, my fellows, is why I have two gilethen fics written)

alright that's it I'm finishing

selethen gifts gilan plants on every occasion he has – mostly ones that can be found in the desert, and gilan adores every one of them

no more headcannons that was the last one (...for now)

I would love to hear your takes on gilethen, so feel free to share!!

[natthemess]

so, not to be that person but. is there a discord server for ranger’s apprentice yet? 👀

[kasztanisagod]

yesterday i found out people ship gilan with selethen. today, i am posting a fic about them because i have no self control lmao anyways here it is

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

[kasztanisagod]

andddd here's another gilethen fic

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

this one's for @witchersgoldenbard, big thanks for the emotional support you provided