Enki left at dawn. There was nothing more to say. The schism was absolute, a canyon carved from two diametrically opposed understandings of creation itself.
The perfect, silent streets of Uruk felt like a tomb. As he walked toward the main gate, the rising sun casting long, rigid shadows, he heard footsteps behind him. It was Lulal. The young man carried a travel pack, his face set with a determined resolve that had burned away the last of his starry-eyed admiration for Uruk.
"You are leaving," Lulal said. It was not a question.
"This is not my path," Enki replied, not breaking his stride.
"It is not mine, either," Lulal said, his voice firm, final. "I thought the highest purpose was to build the grandest, most perfect thing. But you… you asked a question he could not answer. You valued four messy, imperfect lives over a flawless, logical wall." He fell into step beside Enki, his gaze fixed ahead on the open gate. "That… that is a different kind of knowledge. A different kind of power."
He looked at Enki, his eyes clear. "I would learn that. If you will still teach me."
Enki looked at the brilliant, ambitious young man who was willingly turning his back on certainty and power, choosing the harder, less defined path. He saw the shadow of future tragedy in that choice, but also the blazing, untamed potential for something truly new, something the Ikannuna had never accounted for.
"The journey will be long," Enki said.
"I am ready," Lulal answered, without a moment's hesitation.
They passed through the Gate of Stacked Stones and left Uruk behind them. They walked not as master and student, but as partners, their sights set on a distant, struggling village by a river. They would not build a monument to control. They would plant a garden. They would nurture its wild, chaotic, and beautiful growth.
They would call it Sumeria.