a gift for my wonderful friend @bigasswritingmagnet from her Girl Genius fic "Helpful, in a Heterodyne Sort of Way" wishing her luck on her new hyperfixation <3 (don't expect more of it from me tho I am but a visitor in this land kjdh)
(ID in alt and under cut)
ID: 1. Full body of Saturnus Heterodyne, an old man with long gray hair and beard, wearing a maroon smoking jacket with a brass trilobite brooch, striped pajama pants, and slippers with a trilobite pattern. He enters into an open doorway riding on an ornate brass and gold steampunk-style chair moving on multiple spindly mechanical legs, gears and steam whistles tangled at the back. He grins and calls out, "Gilgamesh Wulfenbach!" 2. Extreme close up of Saturnus's face, his grin going a bit maniacal as he says. "Or should I say...Gilgamesh Teuful?" 3. Knees up of Gil in a plain shirt and trousers, sitting in a chair with his wrists shackled to the arms. He stares upwards at Saturnus with wide eyes. 4. Repeat. Gil looks uneasily to the side, as if searching for the right answer. 5. Repeat. Gil looks back toward Saturnus with a nervous grimace and answers, "...Should you?" /end ID
Summary: Gil wakes up chained to a chair in Castle Heterodyne.
That's bad.
But he's been brought there to have dinner with the Lady Heterodyne, who is smart and pretty and interesting.
That's good.
He's been brought there by Saturnus Heterodyne, because he's under the impression that Gil is the biological son of Petrus Teuful, and thus an excellent potential suitor for his beloved granddaughter.
That's bad.
But Agatha is wonderful, and Saturnus promises to keep Gil's "true parentage" a secret. If Gil is lucky, he might get out of this with a girlfriend, and without getting fed to one of the castle's deathtraps.
Klaus would just like people to not kidnap his son, thank you very much.
AO3 Link
Gil woke slowly, but not painfully. There was no aching body or throbbing temples, just a slow ascent from darkness. He was vaguely aware of the smell of cooking meat, the warmth of a nearby fire, the sound of soft music.
And shouting.
“—kidnap the son of Baron Wulfenbach, emperor of Europa!”
Well, that wasn’t a good start.
Gil forced his eyelids to open and found himself staring at…a table. It was covered in a gilt-embroidered tablecloth and set with the most over-the top table settings, every conceivable variety of forks, spoons and knives.
His hands were chained to the chair with manacles just long enough to allow him to reach the silverware (which was gold, he realized). He also noticed what, exactly, the tablecloth’s embroidery depicted. It was not something most people would like to look at during a meal.
A sneaking suspicion began to develop.
“I don’t care how great-great-great-grandmother Thorazia would have done it!”
And that was when Gil noticed the guards, and suspicion became certainty.
There were two of them, standing side by side at the door on the far end of the room. One had horns that curled up over his head almost in a circle; the other had a snout and long, floppy ears. Both were grinning at him—grins filled with sharp, pointed teeth.
Jӓgers.
Gil tried to keep his expression one of mild interest, which the guards clearly found very funny. He drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair, humming softly and very carefully not checking to see how sturdy the restraints were.
They were very sturdy.
As casually as he could, Gil glanced over his shoulder.
Yep, two Jӓgermonster guards on that door, too.
One of them waved at him. Gil gave him a slightly strained smile, and turned back in his seat again.
Okay. Kidnapped, tied to a chair, in Castle Heterodyne. The important thing to do was to remain calm, at all costs.
“Grandfather, I don’t need your help! I am perfectly capable of finding a boyfriend on my own!”
The door flew open and in swept the most beautiful girl Gil had ever seen. She was dressed in filthy mechanic’s coveralls. Her face was smeared with grease. Her hair was beginning to fall free from the messy ponytail she’d put it in, framing her face with fine golden strands. Her eyes were bright green, illuminated behind her large glasses.
“I,” she began, “am so sorry—”
“Hi,” Gil blurted out. “I’m Gil. Uh. Gilgamesh Wulfenbach. Who are you?”
She pulled up short, startled by the interuption.
“Oh. I…I’m Agatha. Agatha Heterodyne.” She shook herself. “Wait, wait, I’m apologizing. My grandfather had you kidnapped, he’s…” She blushed even harder. “He uh. He’s been trying to…”
“Find you a boyfriend, I heard.”
Agatha groaned and rubbed her face, pushing her glasses up.
“I’m so sorry.”
“That’s alright,” Gil said. “You know, it smells like dinner’s been made already, and since I’m already here…”
Agatha stared at him.
“You—really?”
He smiled at her and shrugged.
“I’d hate for it to go to waste.”
Agatha opened and closed her mouth a few times, pink rising to her cheeks.
“Oh. That’s. Very kind of you. I. Um. Should probably go get changed. I’m not exactly dressed for dinner.”
“If you’d like,” Gil said, amicably. “I think you look great.”
Agatha went scarlet and ducked her head, not quite managing to hide her smile. She began to back up out the door she’d entered through, babbling a little.
“I’ll uh. Aheh. It’s not really hygenic, I’m all covered in…I’ll just…um…Nestor, if you could serve Gil some wine or, or something while I, um…”
She slammed the door shut. Gil heard frantic footsteps tearing up the hallway, a call of I told you! and shutupshutupshutup!
A servant approached on silent feet and filled a goblet with wine, then scooched it a little closer to Gil so he could reach it without dragging the chains across the table cloth. Gil didn’t bother to ask if he could be released.
The door opened again and Gil looked up, but it wasn’t Agatha who entered.
At first, the only thing Gil could notice was the chair. From the seat up, it was, well. A chair. But instead of four sturdy legs, the seat rested on what had to be dozens of of spindly, shining, insectile legs. They were constantly moving, extending and retracting and shifting position to keep the occupant perfectly balanced as he crossed the room.
It took some effort to drag his gaze up and meet the sharp green eyes of a man who had Agatha’s nose and a wicked grin that pinned Gil in place.
“Saturnus Heterodyne!” he said, by way of greeting. “And you must be Gilgamesh Wulfenbach!” His smile twisted slyly. “Or should I say…Gilgamesh Teuful?”
Gil stared blankly.
“Uh…should you?”
“No need to play dumb,” Saturnus said, drawing up to the table beside Gil. With a casual air, he picked up one of the decanters of wine and filled a spare glass. Taking the glass in hand, he settled back in his seat and gave Gil a sharp smile. “I heard all about your paternity from that Sturmvoraus fellow.”
“Sturmv—Tarvek?” Gil sat bolt up in the chair, sloshing his wine and yanking hard on the manacles. “Tarvek Sturmvoraus told you I was Petrus Teuful’s son?”
That weasel, that snake! Everyone knew the Lady Heterodyne was more like the Heterodyne boys than like her grandfather. If she thought he was the son of one of the deadliest Sparks in the world—
“No, no,” Saturnus said. “He told his sister. But there are no secrets in Castle Heterodyne, are there?” This last was directed to the ceiling.
‘No indeed,’ said a disembodied voice, sounding quite smug. ‘But I do know when to be…discreet.’
Saturnus chuckled and waved for Gil to relax.
“Calm down, don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. I don’t blame Klaus for keeping it a secret—a man can only put up with so many assassination attempts before they begin to get tiresome.” He laughed the convivial laugh of two people bonding over a shared nuisence.
“Um. I…appreciate that, but—”
“And I certainly won’t be the one to tell Agatha! Don’t want to sway her opinion of you just yet. She’s a little too much like her uncle to believe in the whole ‘change them with the power of love’ nonsense her father did…”
His voice trailed off, his expression suddenly sobering. Gil waited, but when the man stayed silent, he cleared his throat.
“Actually, I think there’s been—”
“Wait, wait, I’m not done.” Saturnus frowned disapprovingly. “Youth these days, no patience at all. What was I saying? Oh! I remember when Klaus finally brought Teuful down. Ha, and Teuful certainly made him work for it! But when he finally fell, what did his men do? Fought harder. Fought to the death. Every man jack was there of his own free will, because he believed in Teuful. That is loyalty.”
Saturnus grinned and tilted his head back, indicating the Jӓger guards.
“And the Heterodynes know loyalty. We appreciate loyalty—and appreciate those Sparks who understand it as we do.”
“Well, of course,” Gil said. “Half of the armies we fight surrender outright because they know they’ll get a better deal with the Empire. But—”
“But indeed! A man who can inspire a soldier to fight for peace and stability, yes, all well and good, hoo-ray. But a man who can take a perfectly ordinary citizen of the world and inspire him to wanton chaos and destruction? Ah, that’s the kind of man I want for my granddaughter.”
He sat back in his chair and sighed heavily.
“I’m relieved to have found you, you know. The number of would-be suitors who have shown up here—why, the grinding machines can hardly keep up!”
“The grinding machines,” Gil repeated.
“Hmm? Oh, yes, unworthy men can be persistant, and I’ll not be having some moon-eyed, would-be-hero fluttering around her and wasting her time. So, on their way out I simply have the castle…” He made a sweeping motion with his hand. “Clean up.”
Gil felt a bead of sweat trickle down his forehead.
“Castle Heterodyne had boyfriend grinding machines?”
“No, of course not! I had to build them. But don’t you worry,” Saturnus said, patting Gil genially on the shoulder. “I’d never snuff out a Spark like Teuful’s so easily.”
‘But perhaps mind where you put your hands.’
Saturnus burst out laughing; the Jӓger guards joined in. Gil forced his own laugh, clutching white knuckled at the arms of his chair. As subtly as he could, he glanced down, and saw that the way the floorboards were laid out, it was not impossible that the chair was positioned over a trap door.
The door opened and Gil’s heart leapt for entirely different reasons than terror.
Agatha stood in the doorway, slightly breathless, still damp from her frantic bath, and dressed in a white and gold dress trimmed with trilobite designs that Gil would say was extremely becoming. She’d missed a spot of engine grease on her cheek, and Gil had no intention of telling her.
“Well, I’ll leave you two at it,” Saturnus said, steering his chair away from the table and towards the door. His granddaughter squinted at him suspiciously.
“Yes, you will. And so will you four,” she said, sternly, to the Jӓgers. “I already have an all-seeing chaperone, who will be silent,” she added, very pointedly. “For the duration of the evening.” Her eyes landed on the glass of wine Saturnus was not quite managing to keep out of sight. “And the doctor said no alcohol!”
“The doctor said less alcohol!” Saturnus shot back, the door slamming shut behind him.
Agatha threw her hands up in the air in exasperation, and thumped down in her seat. Then she hurriedly stood up and swept her dress out so it wasn’t crumpled. Servants closed in, laying out the first course: a bright orange soup that, upon very careful tasting, turned out to be pumpkin.
“I hope he didn’t say anything too awful,” Agatha said.
“No!” Gil said, hurriedly, very aware that Castle Heterodyne could hear every word. “He was just telling me that he was a…fan of my father’s work.”
“Yes,” Agatha said. “I’m not entirely sure he actually understands what your father does.”
“I did get that impression,” Gil said, straight faced. The chain around his wrist clanked against the soup bowl, and Agatha’s eyes went wide.
“Castle! He’s still chained?”
Gil thought he heard something like a distant, mechanical sigh of disappointment, and the manacles popped open.
“I’m so sorry about that. Again.”
Gil smiled.
“Honestly, of all the times I’ve been kidnapped and chained to a chair, this is not the worst.”
Agatha paused, spoon halfway to her mouth.
“Has that happened to you…often?”
“Once or twice!” Gil said. “But I don’t usually get wine.”
-
“—and even though he recognized that it wasn’t on purpose, or entirely my fault, the Master decided I’d just be a trouble magnet, and that was the end of Paris. I finished my degrees in Beetleburg, instead.” Agatha waved her fork vaguely. “But it worked out in the end. It was much easier to rule Mechanicsburg from there.”
Gil started.
“You were ruling Mechanicsburg long distance?”
Agatha gave him a wry smile.
“I couldn’t exactly leave Grandfather in charge unattended,” she said, dryly. “I had regular reports sent to me once a week, and I’d send my orders back same day.”
“That’s impressive,” Gil said. “Balancing your schoolwork, running Mechanicsburg, and still managing to have a social life? Most people can barely manage two of those.”
“Oh, it wasn’t that much more work,” Agatha demured, though she was blushing. “My seneschal took care of the day to day, and my generals managed the defences.”
“Well, I think it’s amazing.”
“What about you?” Agatha returned. “You’ve got two doctorates and Collette said you get into adventures every other week.”
‘My lady—’
“I asked for silence,” Agatha said. “And I specified for the duration—”
‘Yes, my lady, and no one wishes to interrupt your evening. That is why your grandfather asked me to inform you that he will handle the matter.’
“What mat—you know what, nevermind. I don’t want to know.” She rolled her eyes at Gil. “He’s probably gone to argue with the Monster’s Guild about whether the giant rats qualify for membership. I keep telling them, if they’re not sentient enough to pay union dues and attend the meetings, they belong with the Rodent Society.”
The room they were in faced west, giving them a lovely view of the mountain sunset, and no view at all of Castle Wulfenbach descending on Mechanicsburg.
Imagine: a Girl Genius AU where Gilgamesh, Agatha, and some Wild Jaegermonsters are all travelling toward Mechanicsburg together, for reasons. Depending on company, Gil may present as Hero, Kidnapped Prince(-consort), Human(-oid Construct?) Who Rides With Jaegers, or the ever-classic and generally distracting Sparky Madboy.
Klaus may or may not know that there's a Real Heterodyne involved in Gilgamesh's disappearance, but either way he's mad.
He decides to play at being a 'hired because he's pretty' attendant. He's basing at least half his mannerisms on Wooster, who is spying from the bushes and somewhat offended.
I feel like "same hat"-ing Gil and Colette today. There are some crossed wires about how the redhead romancing is going, but at least they both agree that Agatha Heterodyne has it going on.
I do find it interesting that they're interested in the redheaded social climber who isn't into them for that reason, either due to assumed straightness, false identity, or both.
